Part 12 (2/2)
”That's what youth lives on,” said Boase--”not on what happens, but on what may happen. Every morning when you wake don't you feel--'To-day _It_ may happen,' though you haven't the vaguest idea what It may be?”
”Why, yes, I think that's true,” said Ishmael slowly.
”Yes, it's true. It's what youth and hope and courage lives by.”
”And old people--what do they live by?”
”Ah, that everyone has to find out for himself. It depends largely on what his middle-age has drawn on, and that's nearly always something more material than what fed his youth. There's only one thing certain--that we all have something, some secret bread of our own soul, by which we live, that nourishes and sustains us. It may be a different thing for each man alive.”
”We must each work out our own d.a.m.nation,” said Ishmael, and then could have kicked himself for his own smartness that he heard go jarring through the night. He waited in a blush of panic for some reproof, such as ”That was hardly worthy, was it?” But the Parson, ever nothing if not unexpected, did not administer it, though Ishmael could have sworn he felt his smile through the darkness.
”d.a.m.nation, salvation, it's much the same thing,” said Boase, cheerfully, ”though naturally youth likes to use the former word. But the great thing is never to despise the means by which another man attains it. Patience, tolerance, tolerance, patience....”
”Oh, I don't know,” protested Ishmael. ”I don't think much would get done in the world at that rate, would it?”
”Perhaps not. And you have so much to do in it.... When d'you start?”
”To-morrow morning with dawn, so I must be getting off. If you're awake round about then, Da Boase, think of me beginning to remake the world over at Cloom.”
And Ishmael set off through the night, his feet lagging with a blissful fatigue and his mind falling on an equally blissful numbness. As he went the Parson's phrase went with him, stirring his imagination, and when he climbed into the big bed beneath the drooping Christ it worked more articulately within him. ”Secret bread ...” he thought; ”that's what he called it.... I wonder if Phoebe's is sun--she wanted to pick the sun.
And his is religion, of course, and mine--I know what mine is. It'll always be the same. I shan't change even if I grow old.”
He began to feel very drowsy and drifted into a vague wonder at the thought of growing old. ”I wonder what it feels like. I suppose one takes no more interest in anything; it can't matter what one's secret bread is. But mine, of course, mine is Cloom....” And on that he fell asleep.
CHAPTER III
FIRST FURROW
Youth is susceptible to that which it awakes, and Ishmael sallied out early next morning in a mood to match the month as it then shone to greet him. The sun had not long cleared the east, and the globes of dew glimmered on leaf and twig and darkened his boots as he crossed the ill-kept lawn in front of the house. He promised himself it should be rolled and mown and have flower-beds around it, and that a wind-break of firs should be planted along the low granite wall which was all that divided it from the bare moor. He went to the little gate and, leaning his back against it, looked long at the house as though for the first time. He noted the solid simple lines of its long front and the beauty of its heavy mullions and the stone corbels beneath the roof. The portico over the door had pillars of square rough-hewn granite, a whole room was built out over it, with a wide-silled window, beneath which the Ruan arms were carved on a granite s.h.i.+eld. That door should have a drive leading up and widening before it; at present what cart-track there was went meekly along the side of the low wall into the farmyard. Those two big velvet-dark yews that stood sentinel either side of the porch would look splendid when clipped taut and square. So he planned, and then, hearing the voice of John-James calling to the cows, he remembered that the utilitarian side of the place must come first; and he went up the path, through the panelled corridor that led through the house, into the court, pa.s.sed under the arch at the opposite side, and so into the farmyard. There the cows were gathering for the milking, swinging slowly into the yard while John-James held open the gate from the field.
They were good cows, but Ishmael glanced at them critically. Cows were to be his chief concern, for the home farm was not large enough to yield much in the way of crops for sale--nearly all would be needed for the winter consumption of his own beasts. Most of the corn sown was the dredge-corn, a mingling of barley and oats sown together and ground together, which was used for cattle, and the roots and hay were all needed also. Even then there would have to be special foods bought, Ishmael decided, for he believed in farmyard manure, and to obtain that at its best the cattle had to be well and carefully fed. These cows he now saw were good enough of their kind, but he wished to start Guernseys or Jerseys, or more probably a cross-breed of the two, as being fitter for the bare country than pure-bred animals.
John-James tramped in behind the last cow and closed the gate. He had made no remark at sight of Ishmael, and all he now said was:
”Them are good cows. Good as any you'll get up-country I reckon.”
”They look all right for their kind,” admitted Ishmael.
”Finest in the place. Not like Johnny Angwin's beasts--high in the bone and low in the flesh. He'm a soft kind o' chap, sure 'nough, and sick to his heart at having to take to farming toall. He was in a book-shop to Truro, but had to come home when his brother died. T'other day he come to I and he says, 'Oh, John-James Beggoe, my dear, what shall I do? I forgot I did ought to arrange my cows all in steps, so to speak, so that they shouldn't all calve to wance, and now they'll all be a doen of it and us won't get no milk....'” John-James broke off with a chuckle, then resumed with: ”Seen the calves yet?”
”No. I suppose they've been turned out?”
”Not yet. I'll wait till the middle of the month before turnen out.
Eight heifers and three bulls there be.”
”Well, I'll see what they look like. Morning, Katie!”
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