With a great clanking and clanging the new American, tractor struggled
towards them up the hill, dragging its plough. It stopped and turned at
the "headland" as Jerrold came up.
A clear, light wind blew over the hill and he felt a sudden happiness
and excitement. He was beginning to take an interest in his land. He
shouted: "I say, Anne, you look like Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo."
"Oh, not Waterloo, I hope. I'm going to win _my_ battle."
"Well, Marengo--Austerlitz--whatever battles he did win. Does Curtis
understand that infernal thing?"
Young Curtis, sulky and stolid on his driver's seat, stared at his new
master.
"Yes. He's been taught motor mechanics. He's quite good at it ... If
only he'd do what you tell him. Curtis, I said you were not to use those
disc coulters for this field. I've had three smashed in two weeks.
They're no earthly good for stony soil."
"Tis n' so bad 'ere as it is at the east end, miss."
"Well, we'll see. You can let her go now."
With a fearful grinding and clanking the tractor started. The revolving
disc coulter cut the earth; the three great shares gripped it and turned
it on one side. But the earth, instead of slanting off clear from the
furrows, fell back again. Anne dismounted and ran after the tractor and
stopped it.
"He hasn't got his plough set right," she said. "It's too deep in."
She stooped, and did something mysterious and efficient with a lever;
the wheels dipped, raising the shares to their right level, and the
tractor set off again. This time the earth parted clean from the furrows
with the noise of surge, and three slanting, glistening waves ran the
length of the field in the wake of the triple plough.
"Oh, Jerrold, look at those three lovely furrows. Look at the pace it
goes. This field will be ploughed up in a day or two. Colin, aren't you
pleased?"
The tractor was coming towards them, making a most horrible noise.
"No," he said, "I don't like the row it makes. Can't I go, now I've seen
what the beastly thing can do?"
"Yes. You'd better go if you can't stand it."
Colin went with quick, desperate strides down the field away from the
terrifying sound of the tractor.
They looked after him sorrowfully.
"He's not right yet. I don't think he'll ever be able to stand noises."
"You must give him time, Anne."
"Time? He's had three years. It's heart-breaking. I must just keep him
out of the way of the tractors, that's all."
She mounted her horse and went riding up and down the field, abreast of
the plough.
Jerrold waited for her at the gate of the field.