s. It'll
always be the same. I shan't change even if I grow old."

He began to feel very drowsy and drifted into a vague wonder at the
thought of growing old. "I wonder what it feels like. I suppose one
takes no more interest in anything; it can't matter what one's secret
bread is. But mine, of course, mine is Cloom...." And on that he fell
asleep.

CHAPTER III

FIRST FURROW

Youth is susceptible to that which it awakes, and Ishmael sallied out
early next morning in a mood to match the month as it then shone to
greet him. The sun had not long cleared the east, and the globes of dew
glimmered on leaf and twig and darkened his boots as he crossed the
ill-kept lawn in front of the house. He promised himself it should be
rolled and mown and have flower-beds around it, and that a wind-break of
firs should be planted along the low granite wall which was all that
divided it from the bare moor. He went to the little gate and, leaning
his back against it, looked long at the house as though for the first
time. He noted the solid simple lines of its long front and the beauty
of its heavy mullions and the stone corbels beneath the roof. The
portico over the door had pillars of square rough-hewn granite, a whole
room was built out over it, with a wide-silled window, beneath which the
Ruan arms were carved on a granite shield. That door should have a drive
leading up and widening before it; at present what cart-track there was
went meekly along the side of the low wall into the farmyard. Those two
big velvet-dark yews that stood sentinel either side of the porch would
look splendid when clipped taut and square. So he planned, and then,
hearing the voice of John-James calling to the cows, he remembered that
the utilitarian side of the place must come first; and he went up the
path, through the panelled corridor that led through the house, into the
court, passed under the arch at the opposite side, and so into the
farmyard. There the cows were gathering for the milking, swinging
slowly into the yard while John-James held open the gate from the field.
They were good cows, but Ishmael glanced at them critically. Cows were
to be his chief concern, for the home farm was not large enough to yield
much in the way of crops for sale--nearly all would be needed for the
winter consumption of his own beasts. Most of the corn sown was the
dredge-corn, a mingling of barley and oats sown together and ground
together, which was used for