On the wall of an old barn by the great doors there still remains a
narrow strip of notice-board, much battered and weather-beaten: 'Beware
of steel - - ' can be read, the rest has been broken off, but no doubt it
was 'traps.' 'Beware of steel traps,' a caution to thieves - a
reminiscence of those old days which many of our present writers and
leaders of opinion seem to think never existed. When the strong labourer
could hardly earn 7 - s - . a week, when in some parishes scarcely half the
population got work at all, living, in the most literal sense, on the
parish, when bread was dear and the loaf was really life itself, then
that stern inscription had meaning enough. The granaries were full, the
people half starved. The wheat was threshed by the flail in full view of
the wretched, who could gaze through the broad doors at the golden grain;
the sparrows helped themselves, men dare not. At night men tried to steal
the corn, and had to be prevented by steel traps, like rats. To-day wheat
is so cheap, it scarcely pays to carry it to market. Some farmers have it
ground, and sell the flour direct to the consumer; some have used it for
feeding purposes - actually for hogs. The contrast is extraordinary.
Better let the hogs eat the corn than that man should starve. To-day the
sparrows are just as busy as ever of old, chatter, chirp around the old
barn, while the threshing machine hums, and every now and then lowers its
voice in a long-drawn descending groan of seemingly deep agony. Up it
rises again as the sheaves are cast in - hum, hum, hum; the note rises and
resounds and fills the yard up to the roof of the barn and the highest
tops of the ricks as a flood fills a pool, and overflowing, rushes abroad
over the fields, past the red hop-oast, past the copse of yellowing
larches, onwards to the hills. An inarticulate music - a chant telling of
the sunlit hours that have gone and the shadows that floated under the
clouds over the beautiful wheat. No more shall the tall stems wave in the
wind or listen to the bees seeking the clover-fields. The lark that sang
above the green corn, the partridge that sheltered among the yellow
stalks, the list of living things delighting in it - all have departed.
The joyous life of the wheat is ended - not in vain, for now the grain
becomes the life of man, and in that object yet more glorified. Outwards
the chant extending, reaches the hollows of the valley, rolling over the
shortened stubble, where the plough already begins the first verse of a
new time. A pleasant sound to listen to, the hum of the threshing, the
beating of the engine, the rustle of the straw, the shuffle shuffle of
the machine, the voices of the men, the occupation and bustle in the
autumn afternoon! I listened to it sitting in the hop-oast, whose tower,
like a castle turret, overlooks and domineers the yard. In the loft the
resounding hum whirled around, beating and rebounding from the walls, and
forcing its way out again through the narrow window. The edge, as it
were, of a sunbeam lit up the rude chamber crossed with unhewn beams and
roofed above with unconcealed tiles, whose fastening pegs were visible. A
great heap of golden scales lay in one corner, the hops fresh from the
drying. Up to his waist in a pocket let through the floor a huge giant of
a man trod the hops down in the sack, turning round and round, and now
his wide shoulders and now his red cheeks succeeded. The music twirled
him about as a leaf by the wind. Without the rich blue autumn sky; within
the fragrant odour of hops, the hum of the threshing circling round like
the buzz of an immense bee. As the hum of insects high in the atmosphere
of midsummer suits and fits to the roses and the full green meads, so the
hum of the threshing suits to the yellowing leaf and drowsy air of
autumn. The iteration of hum and monotone soothes, and means so much more
in its inarticulation than the adjusted chords and tune of written music.
Laughing, the children romped round the ricks; they love the threshing
and flock to it, they watch the fly-wheel rotating, they look in at the
furnace door when the engine-driver stokes his fire, they gaze
wonderingly at the gauge, and long to turn the brass taps; then with a
shout they rush to chase the unhappy mice dislodged from the corn. The
mice hide themselves in the petticoats of the women working at the
'sheening,' and the cottager when she goes home in the evening calls her
cat and shakes them out of her skirts. By a blue waggon the farmer stands
leaning on his staff. He is an invalid, and his staff, or rather pole, is
as tall as himself; he holds it athwart, one end touching the ground
beyond his left foot, the other near his right shoulder. His right hand
grasps it rather high, and his left down by his hip, so that the pole
forms a line across his body. In this way he is steadied and supported
and his whole weight relieved, much more so than it would be with an
ordinary walking-stick or with one in each hand. When he walks he keeps
putting the staff, which he calls a bat, in front, and so poles himself
along. There is an invalid boy in the yard, who walks with a similar
stick. The farmer is talking with a friend who has looked in from the
lane in passing, and carries a two-spean spud, or Canterbury hoe, with
points instead of a broad blade.
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