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.

iii

It was Sunday evening between five and six.