COUNTRY LIFE
THE town was hardly awake. A restless woman brushed the flags before her cottage; a man came sailing downhill on a bicycle with a brace of rabbits on his handlebars and a gun slung on his shoulder. The woman and the man were the only people about save for myself and the old farm-labourer who had come clumping to the bus-stop to join me. He was dressed in earthy corduroys, a grey shirt and a tattered jacket. His boots told me he was a man of the fields, for the creases of the leather were thick with pollen and 'the dust that rises in the stubble. After a while my companion asked me the time and enquired if I had seen the bus on its way " down." I had, and he was reassured. Not, he added, that, he was worried about being late. " I was there to near midnight last night. Harvest, yOu see. He knows I do my bit. He don't care if I'm two hours late. I can come when I please, for when I comes I works. If the bus has gone I just walks it." The farm, I gathered, was five miles away, but five miles were nothing to this bleary-eyed, hard old character. When the bus came he hauled himself aboard. " Still time to milk one or two if he hurries," he remarked.
Previous page
