THE SOWER
By JAMES HANLEY IHAD climbed the hill and was sitting looking down into the valley below me, conscious of two things, the death-like stillness around me, and my complete immunity from human contacts. Away across the mountains I knew there existed the desperate mass of life that symbolises the cities and towns of today. A March wind was blowing, but the sky was quite clear. Once a whole colony of rooks passed by cawing loudly. Below me were the brown lands, and here and there a farmstead. Then suddenly what looked to me like a Scarecrow began to move. I stood up then and focused my attention Upon it. Yes, this strange figure was walk- ing up and down a ploughed field. I began to descend. As I drew nearer I saw it was a man, but could not yet make out what he was doing in this field. At last I came to the field itself and climbed the gate (an awkward job this) topped by barbed wire (unusual in Wales). I discovered then that he was sowing corn.
At first glance I should take him for a man of seventy. Later I discovered that he was eighty-one. He was the nearest thing to a Russian Moujik I have ever seen. He Wore a huge black overcoat, its collar buttoned tightly about his throat. He woke a black beard. His nose was hooked, and set between eyes of light brown. Such penetrating eyes. Seeing me, he waved his hand and called out in a voice like bronze, " Borthddada " (good morning). The picture was. almost biblical. He looked like one of the old prophets. In his left hand he held a wooden bowl, half full of seed. On his head. he wore a black felt hat, much the worse for wear, the only thing that marred the prophet in him., 'For an old marl he had marvellous teeth. But most wonderful of all was his vitality. He breathed an energy and earnestness which one rarely associates with a man eighty years old. This energy, this tensity he seemed tc• communicate to the atmosphere around him. I remarked how early he was on the job. Laughing, he replied that he had been up since a quarter to five o'clock, had brought in the cattle for milking, set the separator, lighted • the flies, made breakfast, and seen to the calf-feed. Not bad I thought for a man his age.' • I knew, of course, that in most parts of Wales they sow the corn by hand as in the days of old, for Wales' is a country most untouched by the modern spirit. One can travel through the country completely oblivious to the fact that these are factory and machine-made days. And this indifference to progress, this indifference to modern ideas manifested itself for me in the person in front of me; 'his very demeanour was a • sort of threat to such things. One felt lie hated machines ; one could even see him disgustedly refusing any present of a machine- made sower. But then how 'odd this figure would have looked standing behind a mechanical sower. Here was a hang-over from the past. I asked him if he liked sowing by hand, to which he replied laughingly, "But there is no other way that is good." I teased him about the milk separator, for I felt a two-dog power churn was much more in his line. Ah. No. It wasn't any of his business, he had nothing to do with its purchase. His son had bought the milk separator. This reassured me a little. Then he began to sow. And, watching that tall, ungainly figure wrapped in its overcoat, treading down the field, I realised that he was born to sow corn, to sow it in this, old, old way. The beautiful rhythm of his casting, the sway of his body, the way he held his head, the graceful swing of his arm only served to fortify this realisation. One eculd imagine he experienced a sort of ecstasy as he trod the firm earth beneath his feet, that as he long this corn towards it he was in essence symbolising his faith in the soil, his duty towards the mother earth.
With this corn he was writing his own message upon the brown lands. He was in deep communication with the oldest mother of all. lip and down he went and so he came into the very middle of the field. It was as' though some intoxicating essence rose from the earth itself. His movements were more graceful, and he Was smiling,.
not at me, but at the soil beneath him. Here was the core of movement, movement made rhythmical, made poetic. I stood by the gate for a long while watching him. The air was still as before, and only a single gull come in from the sea appeared over his head. As he turned round saw his beard blowing in the wind. Then his hat blew: off and the picture was complete. Here was the prophet sowing his seed. Here was no deluge of mechanical sounds,- only the scraping of his hands in the corn bowl.' Against the light the corn had the appearance of golden dust as he flung it handful after handful into the hungry' earth. Then 'I -Went back up the hill. Fore a long 'time' It sat watching the old man at his work. He would always sow, year in year out. That I thought is his destiny,' to go on serving the brown lands until death. As I rose', to go I stood for a moment to take a last look. His tall figure stood out clearly against the skyline, and far to his left I noticed a single horse,. Maybe I thought he•has seen it too, for it had just .appeared on the' horizon. A good: sign so they say to see a horse outlined' on n hilltop. Suddenly he' stopped.' ' He had finished his. 'Work. He looked my way, saw me, gave a wave of 'the hand,' and then disappeared behind the hedge.
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