That night Ishmael was sore and stiff, but happy, with a deep physical content.  The next day and the next and on till the last furrow lay turned along the lower hedge he kept himself at it doggedly, in spite of aching muscles, driven by a vague feeling that this was his initiation, his test of knighthood, and that to fail at it, to leave it to other hands, would augur ill.  When, on the sixth night, he washed the sweat and earth from off his healthily tired body he felt life could hold nothing sweeter than what it had yielded him in these six days.  He had taken seizen of his land.

CHAPTER IV

THE SHADOW AT THE WINDOW

For nearly three years that content of Ishmael’s held—­held till the Parson, who had worked for it, grew ill-pleased.  It seemed unnatural that so young a man should never want to roam further afield than the annual cattle fair; should be sufficiently stayed with that perpetual struggle against weald and weather.  It was just that tussle which, by keeping the body hard and the mind stimulated, made the content possible.  Ishmael had up till now asked for nothing better, and so far, so good.  But, as the Parson told himself, the time would come when he would demand more, and then, for lack of knowing other possibilities, he might slake himself with whatever was near at hand and slowly sink into the things of the soil till he was smothered with their reek.  Up till now he had spiritualised the land by his wrestling with it, but now that some measure of success, enough to make the struggle less a thing that must not be relaxed for a day, had come, now was the time when the reverse process might begin unseen.

Cloom had undergone a wonderful regeneration, though at present it went only skin-deep, and if left to herself she would soon relapse into savagery.  Ground that had been furze-ridden within the memory of man now yielded roots and grain, though not yet richly; the stubborn furze had been burnt and hacked and torn up, the thorns and thistles, the docks and sorrel, had been patiently attacked until they too yielded, the fine clinging roots of the innocent-looking pink-faced centaury and the more blatant charlock had been eliminated from the tenacious soil; while the pale golden cows of alien breed waxed fat and gave rich milk only a few tones paler than their own smooth flanks.

All this was in the main Ishmael’s work; and his blunders had been few—­he had a genius for the land.  It had been hard work though it meant joy, and left not much time or ease of limb for recreation.  It had been in that respect the Parson met difficulties.  There was hunting in season, and Ishmael was a keen rider to hounds, in spite of his aversion to slaughter of any kind, which upon the farm was the source of not unkindly mirth amongst the men.  They could not yield of their fullest respect and nothing of comprehension to a master who was never present when his own pigs were