The machinist has another and lighter traction engine which does not plough, but travels from farm to farm with a threshing machine.  In autumn it is in full work threshing, and in winter drives chaff-cutters for the larger farmers.  Occasionally it draws a load of coal in waggons or trucks built for the purpose.  Hodge’s forefathers knew no rival at plough time; after the harvest they threshed the corn all the winter with the flail.  Now the iron horse works faster and harder than he.

Some of the great tenant-farmers have sets of ploughing-engines and tackle of their own, and these are frequently at the machinist’s for repairs.  The reaping, mowing, threshing, haymaking, hoeing, raking, and other machines and implements also often require mending.  Once now and then a bicyclist calls to have his machine attended to, something having given way while on a tour.  Thus the village factory is in constant work, but has to encounter immense competition.

Country towns of any size usually possess at least one manufactory of agricultural implements, and some of these factories have acquired a reputation which reaches over sea.  The visitor to such a foundry is shown medals that have been granted for excellence of work exhibited in Vienna, and may see machines in process of construction which will be used upon the Continent; so that the village machinist, though apparently isolated, with nothing but fields around him, has in reality competitors upon every side.

Ploughing engines, again, travel great distances, and there are firms that send their tackle across a county or two.  Still the village factory, being on the spot, has plenty of local work, and the clatter of hammers, the roar of the blast, and the hum of wheels never cease at the shed.  Busy workmen pass to and fro, lithe men, quick of step and motion, who come from Leeds, or some similar manufacturing town, and whose very step distinguishes them in a moment from the agricultural labourer.

A sturdy ploughboy comes up with a piece of iron on his shoulder; it does not look large, but it is as much as he can carry.  One edge of it is polished by the friction of the earth through which it has been forced; it has to be straightened, or repaired, and the ploughboy waits while it is done.  He sits down outside the shed on a broken and rusty iron wheel, choosing a spot where the sun shines and the building keeps off the wind.  There, among the twisted iron, ruins and fragments of machines, he takes out his hunch of bread and cheese, and great clasp knife, and quietly enjoys his luncheon.  He is utterly indifferent to the noise of the revolving wheels, the creak of the bellows, the hiss of steam; he makes no inquiry about this or that, and shows no desire to understand the wonders of mechanics.  Something in his attitude—­in the immobility, the almost animal repose of limb; something in the expression of his features, the self-contained oblivion, so to say, suggests an Oriental absence of aspiration.  Only by negatives and side-lights, as it were, can any idea be conveyed of his contented indifference.  He munches his crust; and, when he has done, carefully, and with vast deliberation, relaces his heavy shoe.  The sunshine illumines the old grey church before him, and falls on the low green mounds, almost level with the sward, which cover his ancestors.