Our next rick was also slightly damp, but this time we were taking no chances and made two holes in the middle as we built. This was done by filling two sacks tight with hay and building on top of them, raising them as we rose. By this method two clean clear shafts were made right through the rick, up which the heat could pass. While building, one or other of the sacks continually kept getting submerged and difficult to find. It is sometimes customary to call such a sack ‘the old man’, and ’E himself, quite aware that he was often referred to by this appellation, added another light touch when a sack got submerged by saying ‘the old man is deaf and dumb, ’e don’t say nothing when you tread on him’. And subsequently I would ask – ‘Where has the old man got to now? I must rescue him.’
This particular dampness we were guarding against was owing to rain that had come on since dealing with the first rick – combustion can also be caused this way. There were constant stoppages, one of the sweeps breaking down every quarter of an hour, the engine for driving the elevator breaking down, and the elevator itself having a stoppage. The wetness of the hay itself tripped up the sweeping, and Robert declared that had four horses been used instead of the power-cutter (which had broken down several times) we could have carried it by now, dry and all.
22 Colloquy on the Rick
The reading public is so accustomed these days to hear praise of the countryman – the swing in this direction taking place before the war broke out – that it is almost a shock to find that this is not yet realized by country labourers themselves. There are still bitter feelings on the score that the townsman looks down on them. A number of us were couching on the following Saturday morning, before the dew had dried on the next hay field, and the subject came up. Some derogatory remarks were made concerning Jimmy, because they were annoyed that he always seemed to get out of doing jobs such as this ’ere couching. They began to refer to him as ‘a town bloke’ and to say that he had no right here at all! This led to the complaint, made by Harold, that before the war the town folk ‘wouldn’t look at you, now they love you’, owing to the present importance of food grown in England. It was clear that they thought that the present praise was mere lip-laudation caused by the war.
Would ’E want us to go on after dinner today? – that was now the great question. There was a tremendous distaste for working on Saturday afternoon. No one knew what he intended – no one ever knew anything in advance. All said – ‘I’m not coming out after dinner, I’m not doing no work on Saturday afternoons’ – Alf being even more emphatic in his declared determination that he would not return after dinner. Yet, in the event, he did – and brought his tea with him. So did all the others – for none trusted the other to stick to his word.
It surprised me that, hay being what it is, feelings about overtime should be strong. But they did not seem to think about the hay, nor to be even vaguely aware that three of the most fearful battles that the world has ever known were at the moment in progress. As for myself, I had brought out a certain amount to eat for dinner, but nothing for tea. That made a gloomy prospect – for whenever I was caught in this way, it never occurred to ’E to ask if I had enough food or bring me out any if I had not, unless I definitely asked him, and then he would bring out a very small piece of cheese and a very plain piece of bread. On this occasion I asked Dick to bring me back something, and he said he would but didn’t – for his mother was not in. However, Alf brought me out some chocolate.
We carried a clover field that afternoon and evening. It was the biggest job I had done to date, whether with hay or with anything else, for we did not finish before nine, and there were no accidental stoppages. A seven-hour fall of hay from the elevator to be hauled round, and a steady rainfall of clover-leaves with it. This latter was a part of the business I hadn’t bargained for, the downfall of small, dry leaves which comes with clover – and I had not yet properly developed the one and only possible technique against this, namely the tight silk handkerchief round the neck, met by a tightly zip-fastened shirt, and well topped with hat.
While I stood there on the rising rick the thought crossed my mind that if a painter were to come into the field and sit down and start making a picture of this ‘rural scene’, I would feel it to be a vast impertinence. And I thought of the picture eventually hanging at an Exhibition to which excessively men-about-town, and women-about-town, totally removed and uninterested in the immediate reality, would come and appraise the picture and see the labourers in terms of paint.
Presently Robert all of a sudden shouted across to me – ‘Before the war you wouldn’t be on this rick, and if you’d seen I and t’others working here, you’d have thought us a lot of mugs, I allow.’ Then he added – ‘I think after the war we should change jobs and I’ll take my ease.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’d like to see you take on my job which seems so easy, but you don’t know what it is.’ (For I thought I had concealed the fact that I used a pen.)
‘Oh yes I do,’ he shouted, ‘it’s a p— ’
‘What’s that?’ I asked, not making out what he had said (it sounded like pig or pork or something).
‘A poit, a writer!’ he yelled. ‘I could go out into that field,’ he continued at the top of his voice, ‘and write a hundred pages as good as any, but I wouldn’t do it. It’s too easy. I wouldn’t do it. If I did on it, at the end of the day my fingers would tingle with shame.’
I turned and looked at ’E who was laughing. Whenever Robert had an outbreak of any kind, ’E always kept up a continuous over-emphatic nervous laugh, in order to keep the matter on a humorous footing.
‘Robert wouldn’t take no easy money,’ he said.
I admit that this sudden attack – though it was really in the nature of an exhibition – rather nonplussed me. I would have liked to advance a more comprehensive philosphy of art than that put forward by Robert, but did not feel equal to doing so under the noise of the elevator, even if I could have found any words that would have been intelligible. Moreover, I was so subdued to what I worked in at the moment, that I could not help feeling a certain justice in his attitude, and I only said feebly, ‘there is a good deal in that’, to which he roared back – ‘there is far too much in it!’
I felt, however, that I could not quite let the matter rest there, so reducing the terms of the Argument from literature to science, I said that the man who sat down (that deplorable position) and invented the elevator, for instance, had his uses.
But this mute, inglorious Milton was not prepared to lend his support to this view; having already disposed of Literature, he now swept Science aside with a single phrase – ‘It took more brain to put it together than to invent it, I allow,’ he said.
Since becoming submerged in the land I had frequently reflected upon how great is the difference between what the man on the road sees and the man in the field experiences. From the road, how delightful the sowing of that hundred-acre stretch of land appears; how calm, how leisurely. The tractors are quietly going round with their drills, the horse standing with the wagon-load of sacks is half asleep, the group of men in the middle are conversing at ease, a man is bending over a sack in no haste. Enter the field, draw close. The boss is in a state of great anxiety owing to the threat of rain, the horse won’t stand still without being yelled at, the man bending over the sack is in difficulties about getting the grain into a too small bucket and is late in having the stuff ready to feed the approaching tractors, the driver in front being in a great hurry because the one behind is catching him up – the operations proceed amidst flurry, speed, noise, haste, anxiety. From the road, how easy and pleasant it looks on the hayfield: the hay-sweep gently coming in with its nice little bundles, the pitchers throwing the hay on to the elevator with no trouble or effort, the men on the rick in an easy rhythm of leisurely movement, two men chatting together. Enter the field, draw close. The bundles are huge, the sweep has come in too soon and the hay won’t come out for the pitchers without tugging, the receivers on the rick are
more exhausted than the pitcher below since while hauling with all their might they stand on an unfirm floor; and the men who are chatting are simply saying – ‘How’s the time going?’ ‘Only three-thirty, I reckon.’
What the man on the road sees is not the immediate reality any more than when, with the wind blowing away from us, we see an aeroplane hovering like a hawk silently above some trees, or another glamorously glittering in the sky, innocent as heaven’s cherubim horsed on the sightless couriers of the air.
Yet here we must pause. The man on the road does not see the immediate reality: he does see something which they in the field do not see, he knows something that they do not know. He sees the Whole. He may see only enough to call it picturesque. The artist is the man on the road with vision. He truly sees the whole, he perceives the Divine Harmony. His task is to reveal the whole to those who are submerged in the part, to unveil the harmony which is really on earth, and thus lessen the burden of life. He does not know that those two men are only asking each other the time, for he sees them in the light of Eternity; and though they may be in hell, he seeks to show that they are also in heaven.
I recently came upon a quotation and comment made by my brother Maurice Collis which deals with this theme. He quoted from the art connoisseur, Mr Max Friedlander, as saying – ‘Art creates a second world in which I am not an actor but a spectator, and that world resembles Paradise.’ And my brother goes on to add that ‘this provides the most valid reason for the existence of art, which can unveil us Paradise while we are yet on earth’. I would prefer to phrase this with a slight difference and to go a step farther, in company with the great mystic Boehme who said – ‘Paradise is still in the world, but man is not in Paradise until he is born again.’ We should not say that art creates a second world, but rather that the artist uncovers the real world into which we could enter. We should not say that through him we may, while yet on earth, see Heaven, for we shall never find heaven save when we are on Earth. It is here. It can be seen when the eye is purged to see it. Sometimes in the stainless, shameless hours of early day, we realize this. As we cycle through the village, which is not awake and never awake to the Great Possibility that lies before it, we become aware that all sins have been forgiven and that Paradise is daily offered to mankind. The artist works for the time when men’s vision shall be so purified, that seeing through the outer vesture, they shall have the strength to grasp the farther goal.
But while standing under the elevator, it was not with any feeling of surprise that I heard a man shout at me that his fingers would tingle with shame if he applied them to the task of Shakespeare or Plato. For if I, who by the chance of opportunity can see round the corner of a hay-rick, could nevertheless in the extremities of toil become so submerged in the Part as to think a painter’s appearance an impertinence, how much more understandable is the attitude of men who are never in a position to see the Whole. Indeed, I am well content to have such remarks suddenly hurled at me; and, through me, at other artists, so that we may re-examine our place, accept our responsibility, and be true to our function in the scheme.
23 Typical Scenes
On the Monday, when we broke off for dinner, Robert produced a cake which he had brought out for me from his wife, possibly feeling that he had overdone it on the Saturday, or out of good nature, having witnessed the lack of tea I had had (no one having offered me as much as a slice). The business of actually passing the cake over to me was tricky, for it had to be achieved without anyone observing it. That would never have done: a proceeding so unusual and extraordinary would have led to gossip. To me it didn’t seem so unnatural as all that, and, always a good receiver, I gave him pleasure by showing great pleasure at seeing it.
After dinner there was a hold-up owing to the breakdown of the battery in one of the hay-sweep cars. The current had to be transferred from the other car. Jimmy was late. ‘Where is he to?’ they asked, feeling helpless without him. Everyone seemed to have some idea how to do it, no one a clear idea, and experiments failed. Harold put forward one school of thought, Dick another, while Reggie and John fiddled with this and that, peering closely at the gadgets with unexampled concentration. Wires were strung between the two cars and there was a great deal of trial and error – chiefly error. Harold wound away at the crank furiously. ’E said – ‘I don’t profess to know. I’ve too many other things to think about.’ Robert advanced a decided suggestion of some sort, but no one took any notice of it, and he strolled to the hedge and carefully examined a hurdle blocking a hole. I stood beside him and made some remark sympathetically indicative of sage council rejected, and he gave me to understand that his patience was nearly exhausted. And so it went on until the mechanic eventually appeared, with that confident smile belonging to genuine engineers in a world given over to ignorance. And sure enough in a few minutes the job was done and the lifeless car was suddenly reborn.
As we went towards the rick, Robert pronounced on the folly of having machines, upon the waste of time they caused, while with horses the whole thing would be half-done by now; and ended by declaring that if he was a farmer he would let all machines ‘go to hell’. ‘All except your tractor,’ I remarked to Harold. ‘I don’t want it,’ he said quickly. He didn’t mean that he didn’t want it, but said so for the benefit of the company, because the tractor-driver is generally regarded as having a soft job ‘sitting on his behind all day’; and since Harold did not see the matter in this light he wished to disclaim any desire to cling to his heavy burden.
We carried on. This particular afternoon was the hottest we had during the fourteen ricks we put up; in fact I have subsequently set any other gruelling job against this as a measuring rod of the just endurable. My longing for tea-hour cannot by any technical device be brought before the reader nor even felt by me now as I write.
The military were stationed in the neighbourhood, and after dinner an officer came into the field, took a prong, and joined the pitchers at the elevator and continued all the afternoon. At length it was tea-time, which was always heralded by the approach of ’E’s other daughter or wife or both coming out with tea for the family. ’E did not make any remark of any kind to this voluntary helper, nor offer him tea. He was pleased that he had come, appreciated it, and felt grateful; but he was incapable of so simple a social gesture as that of offering refreshment.
It took us only another hour after tea to finish the rick. But today this did not mean that the final raking-up, the horse-raking, was finished, which was Dick’s job. Now Dick’s ruling idea was always to stop as soon as possible, but today it looked as if we would stop and go home while he alone remained to finish off the horse-raking. He was much perturbed by the enormity of this possibility. Would ‘the old man’ want him to finish? he wondered; and the job would take some time for he had only half-covered the field.
‘Shall I shut out now?’ he asked.
’E hesitated an instant and then said that he didn’t mind if he didn’t finish, meaning that he did mind but would not press him to continue.
Dick thereupon said that he would just as soon stop, meaning that he would infinitely prefer not to go on.
And he did stop.
There were compensations for working on the rick. A wise man will keep on firm ground if he can help it. Harold never had been on the rick and said he never would – I think he was chiefly afraid of giddiness. Still, I prefer the rick, for the simple reason that I like rising. When beside some trees it is pleasant to become level with the branches, and one gradually gets a good view of the surroundings, of that quiet field, that green hill far away, that village church growing from the grove. But we were too far from the sea to catch sight of it. And that is what I missed. If only we were by the sea! I constantly thought, nothing would matter, no work would seem too long, no crisis would be upsetting. Mountains that stride down to the sea; cornfields cliffed by the shore; summer in the sky and winter on the waves; the sun-path laid across the dawning deep; the ridged and raving waste enstor
med; the dark, cold winter dusk when far, far away on the horizon a long huge black wall of cloud is reared, and just below it soft red rays beam out as from the gateway to another and a brighter land where all is happiness and every tear is wiped away! – thus my mind’s eye conjured the sealess scene. For I was born by the sea, and lived by it, and heard from my bedroom window its unfaltering fall upon Killiney Beach. And though I care nothing about immortality, and nothing about what happens to my bones, I do respond with all my heart to the wild and sweeping poetry in Timon’s frantic apostrophe to himself – ‘Presently prepare thy grave; Lie where the light foam of the sea may beat Thy gravestone daily.’
24 Departure of Alf
A few rainy days held us up, and on approaching Alf one morning, his first words were ‘I’ve ’atched out’. He had given notice to quit. I was surprised at this, for though he had always said he was going to give notice, he was wonderful at not sticking to his word. Since he always said that he was not going to work overtime but invariably did, I thought his decision to give notice would remain strictly in the realm of the imagination. But evidently he had had words of a sufficiently stimulating nature with the carter to give him the necessary impetus to quit the agricultural world.
This particular contretemps can hardly be blamed on the carter. Alf had developed a habit of getting down to the stable, when he had a horse and cart, on the tick of five-thirty. Now the carter had to unharness and take the horses out to the field, and needed about ten minutes in hand. He couldn’t get away on time when Alf only arrived in the stable at five-thirty. Alf’s reason for not arriving earlier was clear and deliberate. He was afraid of being given an extra job by ’E to fill in the ten minutes, which might work out into fifteen or twenty minutes before he could get off. ‘I’m not going down yet,’ he would say, ‘I don’t want no new job. ’E’ll be there, and ’e’ll find me something. It don’t do to go down too soon. Better up ’ere, looksee.’ But this meant being finally turned on and cursed by the carter – which proved too much for Alf. So at last he gave notice.
The Worm Forgives the Plough Page 15
