ted
from his seat and came across to the hedge.

'Goes very well to-day,' he said, meaning that the machine answered.

'You be got into a good upstanding piece, John,' replied the old man
sharply in his thin jerky voice, which curiously contrasted with his still
powerful frame. 'You take un in there and try un'--pointing to a piece
where the crop had been beaten down by a storm, and where the reapers were
at work. 'You had better put the rattletrap thing away, John, and go in
and help they. Never wasted money in all my life over such a thing as that
before. What be he going to do all the winter? Bide and rust, I 'spose.
Can you put un to cut off they nettles along the ditch among they stones?'

'It would break the knives,' said the son.

'But you could cut um with a hook, couldn't you?' asked the old man, in a
tone that was meant to convey withering contempt of a machine that could
only do one thing, and must perforce lie idle ten months of the year.

'That's hardly a fair way of looking at it,' the son ventured.

'John,' said his mother, severely, 'I can't think how you young men can
contradict your father. I'm sure young men never spoke so in my time; and
I'm sure your father has been prospered in his farming' (she felt her silk
dress), 'and has done very well without any machines, which cost a deal of
money--and Heaven knows there's a vast amount going out every day.'

A gruff voice interrupted her--one of the reapers had advanced along the
hedge, with a large earthenware jar in his hand.

'Measter,' he shouted to the farmer in the gig, 'can't you send us out
some better tackle than this yer stuff?'

He poured some ale out of the jar on the stubble with an expression of
utter disgust.

'It be the same as I drink myself,' said the farmer, sharply, and
immediately sat down, struck the horse, and drove off.

His son and the labourer--who could hardly have been distinguished apart
so far as their dress went--stood gazing after him for a few minutes. They
then turned, and each went back to his work without a word.

The farmer drove on steadily homewards at the same jog-trot pace that had
been his wont these forty years. The house stood a considerable distance
back from the road: it was a gabled building of large size, and not
without interest. It was approached by a drive that crossed a green, where
some ducks were waddling about, and entered the front garden, which was
surrounded by a low wall. Within was a l