The Worm Forgives the Plough

by John Stewart Collis

While engaged in this I often came upon a rabbit who rushed out from the centre of a stook. For, instead of a burrow, the creature had found this a lovely ready-made house, warm, peaceful, and dark. Here might it dwell for ever. As one who often feels a longing to curl up in some little nook like that and shut out the world, forget it and be invisible from it, I was sorry for these deluded rabbits, and used to examine the little nest thus created, laying my hand on the warm patch just vacated, and for a moment almost become, in imagination, the creature.

  Later on there were rainy spells before we had carried the oats, and consequently they stayed out a long time. Oats have to be left in stook for a few weeks before carrying, and they cannot be carried wet – whereas you can cut and carry wheat or barley on the same day, while if it rains you can rick wheat even while the water is dripping from it, I was surprised to find. But as none of this applies to oats, constant weather is most important; a lot of sun during harvest being more important than during haymaking – for though you need not make hay while the sun shines and do not want too much of it, the more you have with corn the better. We had no such luck this year. And on one oatfield, at a later date, which I was turning, I found that the ears of different sheaves were stuck together in fraternal embrace. I could not get them apart. It was a remarkable sight. The seeds had already germinated within the damp ears, and had sent out long shoots which, like green pieces of broad twine, were intermingling and clasping each other. A curious and unruly spectacle: as if Nature, unwilling to conform to man’s requirements, was eager to cut out the harvesting, the autumn, and the winter, and start the work of spring straight away.

  38 Scenes at the Pub

  Though we did not get through without rain, we had some long, hot spells. Once more I was putting in a very full day, once more enjoying it even when I wasn’t enjoying it, so to speak – for I like doing things in extremes. Again the very early rise in order to make enough sandwiches for three meals – and what lack of material there was! being reduced for the most part to fish paste and bread. Again the break for lunch at ten, and the coveted hour for dinner, at which time I counted myself the gainer, for I could sit down at once, wasting no time going home and getting back like the others. Then the long spell before tea at five-thirty. At many farms, when overtime is on, it is customary to stop for tea at five – but not here. The break for tea was the day’s great event: it was an event which at certain times on certain days did not seem actually possible (a feeling hard to express, but which I frequently had during hoeing, when I caught myself saying to myself, It is hard to believe, but five-thirty will in fact arrive and you will stop). My thermos kept my tea really hot, and drinking it was like taking whisky then: I mean this in the exact sense that as the first mouthful runs along inside, you feel it passing through, warming and bracing you in a manner it never does save after a long interval of exercise. Thus I harp upon these simple themes, not for the first time. For this is one of the main realities of the agricultural life, too dull to refer to often, but more central to one’s experience than the peculiar incident and the lofty thought. After tea we all felt surprisingly revived, it was quite remarkable. The next two hours were no effort, and three would not have seemed too long – that is why farmers, who think of their men, stop at five and do two and a half hours afterwards instead of the two after the five-thirty break. Then again up the hill home, and yet another meal. And so to bed, the sheer pleasure of lying down being itself a physical luxury.

  But I did not always go straight home. Very often I went with Jimmy and had beer at the pub. There was a certain inner room – it was called ‘upstairs’ though it was exactly one step higher than the other rooms – in which darts were not played and where we had song and dance. For women could come into this room, but never went into the darts room, as that is a game reserved for the men. There was a table taking up the greater part of the room, but in the space left at one side we danced, for one man played the accordion. And the enjoyment was quite as great as if we had had the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles at our disposal (if there is such a hall). The atmosphere was distinctly cheerful and there was singing during the dancing and in between whiles. Pressed to sing I had to explain that I couldn’t command a single note, but I performed my one and only parlour trick, which was a take-off of a Churchill speech, with Churchillian intonations and rhythms. I made an elaborate job of the thing, putting the man who acted rather as the comedian of the company into the role of a Lord Mayor, whom I could then address as if at a banquet at the Guildhall. To my astonishment this went down remarkably well, and I had to repeat my pièce de résistance again and again throughout the harvest and well beyond it, until ‘Churchill’ became my nickname. These were great evenings after our day on the field, providing an excellent contrast.

  We did not always get this room to ourselves, for the military sometimes came in. One evening there was enacted here a peculiarly national scene. A corporal began to sing certain songs which eventually were felt to be too raw in the presence of womenfolk; and our company ostentatiously moved into another room, after first making some deprecatory remarks. But in a moment the corporal followed in a great state of indignation. He wasn’t standing for the remarks that had just been made! He wasn’t going to pass over such accusations! He had witnesses and he would have the Law on us, he would have us up for Libel! Very angry indeed, he supported his threats with two statements. The first was financial. ‘I could buy this pub,’ he kept repeating. ‘I could buy this pub, and two like it!’ The second drew its strength from domestic values. ‘I’m a married man,’ he reiterated, ‘with a wife and two children.’ Having thus established his impregnable position in society, he returned to his threats of Law and Libel.

  This was received by my friends very quietly. They had not wished to hurt his feelings, and their one aim was to appease him. With the greatest civility they unsaid everything they had just said, and eventually shook hands with him – not so much in friendliness as in the manner that one tries to pat or soothe an obstreperous dog. The corporal took this with a poor grace, and the incident did not end at this point. The man who had been mainly responsible for the earlier remarks began to feel dissatisfied with himself for climbing down, and subsequently took the corporal outside and threatened to fight him, or did fight him, I’m not sure which. He had been ashamed of his earlier attitude of giving way to the man, and confessed privately to me that he ‘liked a bit of a set-to’. Thus here in this corner of England, as anywhere else, was exhibited the national characteristic of appeasement and pugnacity. First appeasement, then pugnacity. If the first is not appreciated, so much the worse for the offender.

  What with one thing and another these were great evenings after eleven hours harvesting, and when beer and lots of it was what we needed. In the nineteenth century people got drunk: today no one gets drunk. At least not in the traditional and proper sense as summed up by Plato. It would never do, he said, for a guardian to get drunk and thereby need a guard, and ‘not know where he is’. We were glad to know that we were where we were and not in the field under the eye of ’E. And there was one other great thing in favour of beer at this hour. To take more tea just before bed was not good, but after plenty of beer one could be certain of almost immediate oblivion in the best sense of not knowing where one is.

  39 Scenes on the Rick

  Pitching from the wagons was easy enough while the rick in question was still young. But the time came soon enough when we no longer chucked the sheaves down but began to throw them up. At this stage we often got on to the new wagon-load from the rick, jumping down. Once when I had reached the top of the ladder – which reached to the top of the half-built rick – and was getting off it I lost my balance, seized hold of a sheaf which did not support me, and fell to the ground. Everyone peered over, expecting to see me disabled; but finding that I had achieved little more than a slight cut and bruise, I immediately rose, replaced my hat, and without making any observation whatever, went up the ladder again and start
ed unloading at once, as if I had merely chosen a quick way down to pick up something I had forgotten. This procedure was witnessed with some surprise (as I secretly meant it to be), but all the same I was careful never to slip up again in this manner, and I do not recommend anyone to try and use a top sheaf as a means of support.

  When the rick grew really high our work from below became proportionally harder, since we had to throw the sheaves up higher and higher. Sometimes, either owing to bad timing on one’s own part or carelessness above, one’s sheaf came tumbling down again. But this seldom happened, for if the sheaves go up in proper rotation they need never be muffed at the top if the receivers know their job – that is, simply realize the necessity to give a bold stab of the prong into the upcoming sheaf (an almost infallible method, as I found when on occasion I was in that position myself). But sometimes, if there were too few people on the rick and no one was ‘built in’ on the rising wall, a point was reached when it became necessary to throw the sheaf right up if it was to be caught – an exhausting procedure. ‘Come on now, Mr Collis!’ shouted Robert at one such time, ‘throw they sheaves up thease side. It’ll give thee summat to remember when on thy tractor again!’ At which I threw one so high that it would have gone right over the rick had he not just spiked it in time – an exhibition received with acclamation by Robert and ’E. But Harold, who was pitching with me, said – ‘You haven’t done nothing yet.’ Having done the same amount as he, I replied – ‘Then you can’t have done nothing neither’ – at which there was some hilarity, and we all continued not doing nothing until the rick was finished.

  As there was still a lot to be carried, and as large ricks would save time, ’E decided to use the elevator when the ricks reached a certain height. I don’t know whether this is a widespread practice. There is supposed to be a certain wastage of seed that way; but actually when a sheet is spread out under the elevator, most of the grain which falls out is caught and can be bagged. I was very pleased at this innovation, since when things began to get rather difficult they became exceptionally easy on pushing the moving stairs beside the wagon, and I called the elevator my friend, and it began to be known as ‘Collis’ friend’.

  But this was short-lived. For just at this time some extra helpers came along, and I was called for on the rick, where I remained for most of the rest of the harvest. My job here was fairly equally divided between dealing with this new type of waterfall from the elevator, and binding after Robert. Binding is straightforward enough, and consists chiefly in laying a second layer of sheaves half-over the first layer put down by the rick-maker, other sheaves going behind yours, and so on. Of course if the sheaves are coming down very quickly from the elevator and falling all over the place, it is easy to get flummoxed and to bind loosely and badly. Thus I was always much relieved when a load was finished, thus giving us a few minutes anyway to sort things out if they had got in a mess. Harold, continuing his fun and games with me, always sent as many sheaves as possible up to me as quickly as possible. Having failed to bury me under hay he tried to bury me under sheaves, and certainly they sometimes tumbled down in great quantities. ‘I don’t think much of this elevator idea!’ I said to ’E. He laughed and shouted down to Harold, ‘Collis says he’s going to withdraw the elevator. He hasn’t no use for his friend no more!’

  Yet I still liked rising in the world and getting my view. At this time of year one of the most satisfactory of all agricultural sights meets the eye – that of sheep folding a field of clover. I could see them on a thick luxurious field which could have taken a second hay-cut. On one side of the hurdles was the dark green clover, and on the other all of it eaten away by the sheep who had at the same time thoroughly manured the ground. It is a sight which gives one such a feeling of benefits bestowed upon all by this most proper homage to the rule of return.

  And I got a good view of the workers out in the field, pitching and loading. It was especially fascinating to observe ’E’s boy, John, at work. It was phenomenal. Here anything at all in the nature of leisurely work was absent. His forking up of the sheaves was accomplished at the double. He dashed at them with his prong as if to bayonet them, hurled them up to the loader on the wagon, ran to the next and hurled it up, then jumped on to the tractor, and, before the others were ready on the far side, cried ‘Hold tight!’, brought the wagon forward a few yards, stopped it, seized his prong, leapt off, and rushed at more sheaves – as if something were biting him. How far this really pleased the parental eye, I don’t know, but I suppose it did. But he had one relaxation. If a rabbit suddenly ran out from its hiding place in a stook, he would rush madly after it with his prong, no matter for how far or for how long, forgetting all else. This pursuit was entirely utilitarian of course, and emphatically pro-agricultural and calculated to promote extermination of vermin; but happily it dovetailed remarkably well, I thought, with his psychological requirements.

  I was generally sorry when a rick was practically finished and I had to get down. As the roofing grew our plateau naturally became continually narrower so that there was less and less room to work in and the pitchers below had to send up the sheaves slowly. Soon there was only room for two of us, then only for one and Robert would say, rather apologetically, ‘Better get down if you will’, knowing that I didn’t like somehow having to retire as a now useless tool. Once, long before roofing, our rick began to come up against the branches of a tree, which had seemed far enough away (over a wall) when we had planned our base. While the elevator was going full tilt ahead, Robert asked for a billhook and began hacking away at a branch, and in fact engaged himself for some time at this. My pile of material began to assume proportions. ‘Hey, Robert!’ I cried. ‘You can’t start taking up forestry while building a rick! What am I to do with these sheaves?’ ‘Let they sheaves bide!’ he yelled, ‘I baint gwine to have thease wold tree interfere with I!’ Meanwhile I failed to grapple with the waterfall of sheaves – increased in volume from below for the occasion.

  One rick finished, on to the next – with ’E measuring out the space for the bedding of straw (I saw now where that bent head and long cricket-pitch strides came from: the result of perpetually measuring out rick-floors). We generally built almost exactly one and a half a day. I liked it to work out so that we were finishing a rick after tea. For one thing, the intensity of the agricultural earnestness was relaxed and good humour often prevailed; more people came out then, and we had our land girl from the dairy and the atmosphere was even uproarious at times when Robert yelled about gaps and holes, pretending that I was responsible for them. And this was by far the best time of the day to be high on the rick. That is the hour at which one really does glance round at the view, when the soft lights come on and the hard ways of the world are diminished.

  We were now on a field beside that piece of kale I had first hoed, those plants that had seemed so poor in promise. The miserable stalks that I remembered were now as thick as a man’s leg and as high as the waist or shoulders – and again I marvelled at the march. We worked very late that evening, and it was an especially lovely one. The wind had gone down completely and all the shapes of earth captured in the yellow rays were sculptured by their shades. The sun set and the dusk gathered, and with it came a deeper silence, as when a clock stops ticking in a silent room; the clouds had got stuck and would never move again; the new moon stooped down so low above a tree that I could have hung my hat upon its horn. The final tricky part of the rick-making began when, the platform growing very narrow, I had to handle the sheaves with much circumspection. Down below I could see the roads becoming whiter and the fields darker and the woods more sombre, and as I glanced at them it occurred to me that perhaps after all this is how I would prefer to catch sight of Beauty – through the corner of my eye, while immersed in something else, while not seeking her at all.

  40 My First Attempt at Rick Building

  By this time I began to know what a rick is. It is a solid cottage. Its bricks are sheaves, its slates are sheaves, and
it is filled with the same – on similar lines as Ghenghis Khan built his pyramids of skulls. They stand at this time of the year all over the countryside, and it looks very easy to put them there. But how would I get on, I wondered, if I tried the job of architect? Would my exhibit resemble the leaves of yesteryear? Yet such is my pertinacity and venturesomeness, that I determined to try.

  As I had succeeded rather too well with a hay-rick, Robert was none too keen on a further success. Nor were the others, really. It would hardly do to let me get away with it. ‘Build it on the sand, you mean,’ said Harold, whatever that meant, when the subject came up. ‘You’ll be losing your job, Robert,’ said Jimmy, and Robert not quite liking this even in jest said that ‘come threshing’ he would be only too glad to hand it over to me. Nor was ’E particularly keen, as my attempt might well hold things up. But he was always very sporting to me in such things. When we had started on a certain barley-rick, a favourable opportunity seemed to offer, and I weighed in on it. Actually it was idiotic to choose barley of all things, since the sheaves are so stumpy and as slippery as glass. However, I started and began going round. Here I made another capital error. I remained standing up, doing the work with my prong, instead of dealing with the sheaves by hand and going round on my knees as Robert frequently did. The corners were my chief difficulty. I had carefully watched Robert dealing with the corners, and I could teach how it was done, but to do it in full action without fumbling was another matter. However, I carried on round.

  ‘Go forward with thy left foot! bellowed Robert loud enough to be heard two fields away.

  ‘Tread ’ee down!’ said ’E, my second tutor.

  ‘Keep ’ee closer!’ shouted my first instructor.

  Baffled by having placed a sheaf too far in I tried to push it out, but another fell on top of it before I could do so, and another bellow came from my foremost guide.