The Farm by the Lake

Chapter 17

At dinner Flo learned what the farmer and Jack had been discussing. The farmer mentioned it as soon as he got in.

“What d’you think Jack’s latest is? Bin tellin’ me how ta mek hay.”

“We’re doin’ it all wrong, I bet,” said Clem.

“Wastin’ our time, he says. ‘You dunna think as we shake it about for fun, done you?’ I axed ’im. ‘Dry it without shakin’ it so much,’ ’e says. ‘How con you?’ I said. ‘If weather’s good, turn it once in th’ swath an’ then get it in,’ says ’e. ‘The quicker the better.’”

Mr. Nadin looked at his sons and then at his wife and daughter and Flo in turn.

“His father were daft an’ ’e teks after ’im,” said Mrs. Nadin promptly, as if there was nothing else to be said.

“What’s his argument? He had one no doubt . . . out of a book.” Bert popped in a chestnut-sized pickled onion, graunched it twice, and went on graunching and talking at the same time, “He’s a beggar for books.”

“Some as ’as no sense tries ta get it that way,” said Mrs. Nadin.

“He says as there’s a sort of varnish on th’ stalks. When they’re shook up it cracks an’ then th’ stuff’s spoiled,” the farmer explained rather laboriously. “Ay, he said as ’e’d read it somewheer.”

Flo got the impression that Mr. Nadin was really worried; obviously he was stubborn, determined to keep to his own methods, yet he had been impressed and had spoken hoping that one of the boys might know more about it. “I dunna see ’ow you con dry it properly ’bout shakin’ it out,” he finished, almost as if trying to convince himself.

“Oh, he’s allus gettin’ ideas,” said Clem.

“Trouble is, he doesna follow ’em out; allus on ta something fresh,” said Bert, reaching his glass and taking a deep drink.

“I know it loses seeds if it’s non cut just reet’; if ’e’d argued about that I could ’a understood,” complained Mr. Nadin.

“Hech,” broke in Mrs. Nadin testily, “it’s hay outside an’ hay in; let’s have a change.”

Nobody seemed to be able to think of anything else and the meal ended in silence.

In the afternoon Flo was shown how to draw the hay into wind-rows. The rake had a foot-lever and a hand-lever to be used together, only she was forced to do all by hand. There was a good crop, and she was kept at it reaching down and pulling on the handle. The long curved tines swung up, clearing themselves, then clashed down and groped again along the ground. It was harder for Colonel, too, and Flo could not control him well with one hand, so that the windrows suggested tremendous caterpillars with convulsions. She was ashamed of them. At half-past five Mr. Nadin stopped her. It was cow-time. She was glad of the rest because her ankle was aching again. The farmer and Dot milked as well, but the boys kept on in the field. Getting at the end of a wind-row they tucked their pikels in and shoved, tobogganing the hay along till the weight stopped them, and then making it up into neat conical lumps. Mr. Nadin kept going to the gate. Once Flo heard him shout:

“Na, Bert, mek it proper; they’ll non shed water.”

What reply he got she did not know, but he came back muttering. Dot was in a bad temper also, and Flo began to understand why haytime was so disliked. The farmer and the boys worked till ten, and when Flo looked out of her window the field was covered with humps which in the dusk looked as if some gigantic moles had thrown up their hills all over. She remembered the swaths of the morning, and was surprised when she counted the times in the day that the look of the field had been completely changed.

At ten next morning the weather broke. A fine drizzle like a cloud came up the valley from the west.

“Fine-weather rain,” said Clem. He went off in the float with Colonel to get a new shoe, one having been kicked off during the raking, though Flo hadn’t noticed.

Bert got his gun. Mr. Nadin went with him, but only to the gate, where he looked over the field which in the greyness looked disconsolate. He stayed there ten minutes. Hearing Flo going to the wash-house he turned and said, “Damn good job we got it coiled,” and at once turned to stare over the gate again. Half an hour later Flo saw him with a spade and a mattock going to open a drain that had choked in Three Oaks. He could not go far away from the hay field.

In the afternoon Flo was surprised to hear Mrs. Nadin say, “If you want to goo out, goo. When th’ weather’s fit agen the old fool’ll be like a slave-driver.”

Although Flo’s foot had gone easier in the night, she decided to write home; but then thought that if she didn’t go out Mrs. Nadin might give her more darning, which had already thoroughly bored her. So knowing that she could not walk far she put her old coat on over her working frock, intending to idle round the lake. She went slowly along the lane. Just as she was level with the boat-house Bert came out. He seemed surprised and called, “Hello, where are you off?”

She told him, “Nowhere special,” and he answered, “I promised you a trip; now’s your chance.”

He selected two oars and carried them under his arm into the boat-house. There was a skiff alongside, and he told her to step in. He gave a powerful shove from the stage and they forged backward from under the pointed roof. Skilfully and easily he manœuvred round and rowed with leisurely rhythm. Flo felt in the bottom of a hollow as she looked up at the great grey-green farmhouse, so unfamiliar from there. The drizzle flowed down on them, and beyond the immediate shores everywhere looked grey and soaked. Beside the willows Bert balanced the oars in the rowlocks and let the boat drift and there was silence. Fine as the rain was, Flo fancied that she heard the faintest sizzling as it met the placid surface. Bert saw to the spinners on his rods, then whipped them in a circle over his head and let them drop lightly astern one after the other. He told Flo how to hold the rods, and she was to report the least suggestion of a snatch. He began to row again, and she felt the slight vibration of the lines and was thrilled, expecting every moment to hook something about as big as a whale. Only nothing happened. They came to the first arm and went slowly across. Flo was excited to see a slim grey bird about a yard high leap off the mud at the far end and go in a swirl to the top of the willows. Its wings looked black and tremendous. Above the bushes the bird flapped slowly and seemed to fly with great ease.

“Wish I had a gun for the blighter,” said Bert. “Pike an’ them, they’re ruinin’ the place.”

Down the arm there were numbers of wild ducks, also, and six towered at the same moment as the heron, though not as high. They made a quick-winged circuit of the lake, and dropped back into the arm when the boat was past. Flo looked to the rods again, but still no fish was tempted.

“Are there any?” she asked.

“Plenty . . . but non always hungry,” Bert answered.

She watched him. He pulled easily, confidently. The hairy tweed of his jacket had been turned from rust-brown to grey by drizzle specks. Flo was getting damper and damper, but there was a pleasant clean feel with the rain; it seemed to cleanse her cheeks and she imagined herself looking pink and attractive. Bert smiled, but she knew intuitively that it was only because he was content. She wished that Jack Knight or Dick Goldbourn had been in the boat instead.

They had reached the far end and Bert turned and drove parallel with the rough-stone-faced dam which sloped away from them. Its level top of grass cut them off from everything beyond, as though the world in that direction ended there. They were in the widest part of the lake, near where Jenny and Jerry had swum. Midway Bert stopped, oar-blades moveless in the water. The little clap-clap of wavelets beneath the prow ended, silence was complete again. He looked up the water musingly, without speaking. Flo copied him. She had never realized that the lake was so big. It stretched away like a sea, and the dim flat height of Moss Top in the drizzle seemed miles off. The flat shores grown with willows on the north and with alders and bush hawthorns on the south reminded her of a page of a story she had read in a book left in the front room by one of the previous week-end visitors. It was called “Heart of Darkness,” and described a low-lying African coast backed by mysterious bush. “It’s just like that,” Flo thought.

“It’s a good spot,” said Bert, starting pulling again.

The south shore lacked the long arms of the north and was not as interesting, and Flo began to feel the wet going cold down her neck. She tried to mop it with her handkerchief, and Bert grinned and asked what was up. She was about to reply when he abruptly let go of his right oar to grab the rod on that side which she had neglected. He gave a quick wrist snatch, getting up swiftly with expert balance. Flo saw the line cut the water, first away from them, then left, then right. How queer, when she could not see anything; as if it was the line that had suddenly come alive and gone mad. Her pulse speeded up; she gripped the sides of the skiff, till the line all at once went dead again. “Small one,” Bert announced. He began to wind in, holding the rod tip close along the surface. “Get the net.”

She fumbled, the handle seemed too long. She gripped it halfway in her right hand, and stared intently overside. Slowly the vague dark shape of the fish came upward. She leaned over, dipping with a splash. As if electrified the fish leapt, smashing the water, so that momentarily she saw it complete—curved, lean, silvery blue and vicious. She almost sprawled overboard, her heart bolting.

“What the . . . the b’s gone!” exclaimed Bert, and went on more amused than angry, “You dipped as if you was after an alligator.”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” murmured Flo, feeling foolish, yet half glad. “I wasn’t expecting it to . . .”

“You damn near jumped in yourself, didn’t you?” Bert grinned. He wound the rest of the line. “I generally go round once a day,” he explained. “Sometimes you con see off the water what you canna see on land.” He rowed on with the one line out. “I’ll be damn glad when th’ hays in. The old man got worked up about what Jack said, eh?”

“Yes,” said Flo, looking across to where a few of the hay cocks could be seen behind the bay in the willows. “Will it spoil badly?”

“I reckon what Jack said was right, you know,” Bert observed slowly. “I’ve read a bit, somewhere. The more you mess it about, th’ more likely you are ta spoil it. Jack’s non as daft as some thinks; he’s got his head fast. He reads. It’s surprisin’ what you con get out o’ books.”

“D’you read?”

“Me? I’ve noo time. By gum, speak of the devil . . .!”

Flo glanced in the way of his nod. Coming down the lane past the farm was Jack in his float. Opposite the boathouse he stopped the nag and strolled down. Bert looked over his right shoulder and with deft short strokes glided faultlessly in beside the stage and dropped the painter over its peg.

“Lucky beggars,” said Jack, standing over them while Bert wound in the remaining line. “What luck?”

“Nowt. She gave the on’y one we saw a clout wi’ th’ net as scared it a mile off.”

“What you doin’ . . . joy-ridin’?” asked Jack, looking at Flo.

“It’s my afternoon off,” said Flo, Bert’s hard palm closing on her hand to pull her up on the stage. “I can’t walk ’cos of my foot, so he said he’d take me.”

“Ever bin up ta Belle View? I’ll give you a ride there, if you like.”

“What you after there?” Bert asked.

“Greenhouse. He’s givin’ up, so I heard at auction. Have you heard owt?”

“Ay, he’s givin’ up all right. What the hell d’you want another house for?”

“Tomatoes. If you’re goin’ for a job, you’ve got to go in prop’ly. If you get customers, you’ve got ta be able ta keep ’em supplied.”

“I’d sooner shoot,” said Bert drily.

“Comin’?” asked Jack of Flo. They had moved into the open and for a moment his pale blue eyes met her’s. “It’s non Pullman-strung, but it’ll save your foot.”

She did not speak, but went with him. The piebald nag turned its head, its baggy blinkers queerly making it seem like an old long-headed man staring interrogatively over old-fashioned spectacles.

“When are you goin’ ta shove it in a museum?” asked Bert.

“What . . . old Mike?” Jack laughed good-temperedly. “You coming, too. He’ll pull three.”

“Nay, it’s nowt in my line . . . chaperonin’.” Bert winked at Flo and took the path past the cabin to the house.

“I like Bert; he’s the best,” Jack commented as they went up the slope. He pulled down a small wooden flap on the right-hand side of the float.

“But it’s the driver’s, isn’t it?” Flo objected. He told her that Mike didn’t need driving; and he sat on the opposite side, balanced partly on the mudguard.

After three encouraging shouts the piebald shook himself into a jog-trot which took them on very little quicker than walking. However, Jack seemed satisfied and began to talk of the folk round about being nearly all like Bert and Clem.

“Decent chaps, but no go in them. As long as they’ve got what they want, they dunna care. Don’t know what ambition is.”

“No,” said Flo, watching the slow revolving of hedges, trees and fields past them on either side. She had become almost unconscious of the rain, which had gone finer still, almost to mist. Moss Edge was smothered by a blur of white cloud and she wondered if they would climb into it.

“I reckon we’re all here ta do something; non just to drift through anyway, enjoyin’ ourselves,” Jack went on.

“Yes,” said Flo, beginning to pay more attention.

“They make fun o’ me, always tryin’ things.”

“D’you think you can grow tomatoes?” Flo asked, looking without his knowing, so far as she could tell. The collar of his old navy blue reefer stood up with the pink rims of his ears just showing, but his head was bare, and the crisp hair glistened silver with drizzle bubbles. His lean nose and lips suggested determination, and she was suddenly struck by the complete difference from the rectangular rather dark features of Dick Goldbourn.

“I reckon I can,” said Jack. “You dunna know what you con do ’bout tryin’.”

They passed under a high-arched bridge which Flo guessed she must have travelled over when she came from Barrow. The road swung a little rightward and went down an avenue of larches ending in a triangular space on which looked dourly more in the manner of a police station a solid stone-built pub with the curious name of Ants’ Nest. A few other houses were scattered about, but almost as though hiding.

“Mossdyche,” said Jack, and guided Mike round the end of the pub where Flo saw a narrower lane which took them curving to a shallow guggling stream. By the bridge where the stream ran unfenced for a dozen yards three cows were drinking with a girl of eight or nine standing by. She had fresh cheeks, sun-gold hair, and an innocent look. Jack shouted: “Hi, you’re lettin’ ’em drink too much; you’ll have ’em bustin’. How’s Dick?”

“All right, thank you,” answered the child primly, smiling up.

“There’s not many people you don’t know,” said Flo.

“And not many as don’t know me,” he said, as if he liked it.

They turned off leftward up a still narrower lane, as rough and twisted as a torrent bed. Mike stepped as though he had corns, and Jack did not try to hurry him. They came to the lowest whisps of cloud flowing between the hollies and hawthorns with which the track was hedged; great white smudges that looked as though they would overwhelm Mike, the float and everything, but which passed with eerie silence and scarcely any perceptible thickening of the atmosphere; whiteness almost without body. Flo liked it. Between drifts she made out under the hill on the right a tall newish house which seemed out of place by the old sunk lane. Jack turned in between squared stone pillars. “Belle View”, Flo read, and smiled for there was no view, though it was easy to imagine the lake far below. They approached the house from the end. The gravel drive spread into an oval front and then past the house were sloping gardens with two shabby greenhouses at the side. House and garden were neat, but only perfunctorily so; there was no real sign of pride. Flo stayed in the float while Jack went round the back. After a while he walked up to the greenhouses with a medium-sized man with a very small head in a small cap and small feet in thin shoes, but with a stomach like a barrel. The pair chatted and went from house to house and chatted some more, inside and outside. The stout man made as if to walk away, then turned back. Jack went round the outside of both houses very carefully. He tested many of the panes with spread fingers; and much of the wood with a pocket-knife. The stout man took his cap off and scratched the top of his cranium which was bald and unexpectedly pale, as if it had never been uncovered for a year or more. Jack put both hands in his pockets and with his coat spread out looked nearly as fat as his opponent. The stout man spat on to a cabbage top. They went back into the lower house. When they came out the stout man very deliberately shut the door and led to the upper house. Ten minutes more were spent there before they came strolling towards the float. The stout man nodded at Flo, said it was a wet day, hoisted and spat, told Jack to be good, and then waddled off round the house back. Jack grinned and said: “Got ’em,” and started Mike round.

Jack was so obviously pleased that Flo felt glad, too.

“You brought me luck,” he said; and she thought of the green pig and the heart-stone and wondered whether he believed in that sort of thing. Instinctively she knew that the answer was “No.”

“Forty-seven quid the two. I’ll grow some tomatoes now, by gee, you wait.” He chuckled. “Ben didn’t want ta part, but it’s the road; folk winna come up for ’em.” And as they went down, Mike stepping even more warily, Flo learned that Jack had already got a stove and pipes enough, he reckoned, for these two houses as well as the house he had already bought.

“Ben’s like th’ rest. He says I conna grow ’em, neither. They say it’s too cold, an’ there’s non enough sun; an’ they say th’ soil’s not right.”

“I . . . I thought any soil was all right,” said Flo.

“Well, most soil’ll grow something but there’s some as is a lot better. And some soil’ll grow one thing, an’ another soil’ll grow somethin’ else. But thing as gets me is th’ way chaps round here just thinks as their ground winna grow anythin’ on’y grass, an’ yet they never tried it.”

“Is Mr. Nadin as bad?”

“No, he’s good . . . in his way. But he’s chiefly keen on cattle, and he’s old-fashioned. He never reads, and a man as doesn’t can’t keep up-to-date . . . unless, of course, he goes to special lectures an’ demonstrations. But he doesn’t.”

“Do you?”asked Flo.

“I never get chance. But I study up when I con, an’ I reckon I’ll be able ta grow tomatoes an’ lettuce an’ chrysanthemums an’, happen, a few other things.”

Flo laughed. “You’re always thinking about tomatoes. D’you dream about them?”

“I dunna,” said Jack, laughing also. “I’m too busy; when I go ta bed I sleep.”

“Suppose the soil round here’s good for something else, an’ not for tomatoes?”

“I think it will. But if it winna, I’ll get some, or make some as will. I’ll shovel up a few thousand mole-heaps an’ fetch a few hundred sacks o’ leaf-mould from th’ beech woods yonder.” They had come out from beneath the railway bridge again, and he waved to the top of the hill behind them. “It’s grand stuff for potting,” he went on, his pale eyes looking at her gravely. “You know, I’m non so set on tomatoes that I winna try anythin’ else. But I think there’d be a good sale for fresh tomatoes round here, an’ I’d like to sell ’em ta folk so that they’d know what real fresh home-grown ones are like.”

“You’d sooner grow things than be like Mr. Nadin?” said Flo, studying him and wondering what would happen to him eventually.

“I like animals, in a way; but I’d sooner grow things. I dunna know why,” he confessed. “There’s somethin’ in the touch of the soil, somehow, as makes me . . . specially in spring when it comes warm after bein’ clammy . . . Have you ever dug your hands in a mole-heap then?”

“I haven’t.”

“Next spring, just try it. It’s dry an’ warm, it’s like corn meal, it’s . . . well, somehow there’s something wonderful about it. Nobody knows exactly what’s in soil, an’ what it’ll do an’ what it winna do. I . . . I let it run through me fingers, an’ I wonder about it. If anybody saw me doin’ it, they’d think me daft.”

“I wouldn’t,” said Flo gently.

“Trouble is, most folk think they know everything specially ’bout things like soil as there’s plenty of; an’ the rest don’t care, anyway.”

They had reached the straight that ran nearest to the lake. Through blackthorn and hawthorn bushes Flo saw Dick Goldbourn sitting patiently with his rod over the water.

“D’you think Dick Goldbourn cares?” she asked.

Jack looked, too, but did not answer at once. Then he said: “Dick’s had a hard time. He’s a decent chap; I like Dick.”

“But does he care about things as you think he ought to?” Flo persisted, not really knowing why.

“Nay,” Jack laughed, his mood and tone changing, “you’re non goin’ ta catch me that way. Live an’ let live. I dunna think I could fish all day, but I’m no good at fishin’. You should ’a seen me t’other day trying ta help him land a pike; it welly drowned me.”

“I nearly drowned myself trying to land that one of Bert’s to-day before you came,” confessed Flo. Both of them laughed.

Flo wondered if Dick had seen her; but she did not care either way.