The household rose early. He was out digging by six o'clock
in the morning, he went to his work at half-past eight. And
Ursula was usually in the garden with him, though not near at
hand.
At Eastertime one year, she helped him to set potatoes. It
was the first time she had ever helped him. The occasion
remained as a picture, one of her earliest memories. They had
gone out soon after dawn. A cold wind was blowing. He had his
old trousers tucked into his boots, he wore no coat nor
waistcoat, his shirt-sleeves fluttered in the wind, his face was
ruddy and intent, in a kind of sleep. When he was at work he
neither heard nor saw. A long, thin man, looking still a youth,
with a line of black moustache above his thick mouth, and his
fine hair blown on his forehead, he worked away at the earth in
the grey first light, alone. His solitariness drew the child
like a spell.
The wind came chill over the dark-green fields. Ursula ran up
and watched him push the setting-peg in at one side of his ready
earth, stride across, and push it in the other side, pulling the
line taut and clear upon the clods intervening. Then with a
sharp cutting noise the bright spade came towards her, cutting a
grip into the new, soft earth.
He struck his spade upright and straightened himself.
"Do you want to help me?" he said.
She looked up at him from out of her little woollen
bonnet.
"Ay," he said, "you can put some taters in for me.
Look--like that--these little sprits standing
up--so much apart, you see."
And stooping down he quickly, surely placed the spritted
potatoes in the soft grip, where they rested separate and
pathetic on the heavy cold earth.
He gave her a little basket of potatoes, and strode himself
to the other end of the line. She saw him stooping, working
towards her. She was excited, and unused. She put in one potato,
then rearranged it, to make it sit nicely. Some of the sprits
were broken, and she was afraid. The responsibility excited her
like a string tying her up. She could not help looking with
dread at the string buried under the heaped-back soil. Her
father was working nearer, stooping, working nearer. She was
overcome by her responsibility. She put potatoes quickly into
the cold earth.
He came near.
"Not so close," he said, stooping over her potatoes, taking
some out and rearranging the others. She stood by with the
painful terrified helplessness of childhood. He was so unseeing
and confident, she wanted to do the thing and yet she could not.
She stood by looking on, her little blue overall fluttering in
the wind, the red woollen ends of her shawl blowing gustily.
Then he went down the row, relentlessly, turning the potatoes in
with his sharp spade-cuts. He took no notice of her, only worked
on. He had another world from hers.