The bull was bellowing. The steady sound went up into the air in a dark red column. Seth leaned moodily on the hoot-piece, watching Reuben, who was slowly but deftly repairing a leak in the midden-rail. Not a bud broke the dark feathery faces of the thorns but the air whined with spring's passage. It was eleven in the morning. A bird sang his idiotic recitative from the dairy roof.
Both brothers looked up as Flora came across the yard dressed for her walk upon the Downs. She looked enquiringly at the shed, whence issued the shocking row made by Big Business, the bull.
'I think it would be a good idea if you let him out,' she said. Seth grinned and nudged Reuben, who coloured dully.
'I don't mean for stud purposes. I meant simply for air and exercise,' said Flora. 'You cannot expect a bull to produce healthy stock if he is shut up in the smelly dark all day.'
Seth disapproved of the impersonal note which the conversation had taken, so he lounged away. But Reuben was always ready to listen to advice which had the good of the farm at heart, and Flora had discovered this. He said, quite civilly:
'Ay, 'tes true. We mun let un out in the great field tomorrow.' He returned to his repairing of the midden-rail, but just as Flora was walking away he looked up again and remarked:
'So ye went wi' the old devil, eh?'
Flora was learning how to translate the Starkadder argot, and took this to mean that she had, last week, accompanied her Cousin Amos to the Church of the Quivering Brethren. She replied in tones just tinged with polite surprise:
'I am not quite sure what you mean, but if you mean did I go with Cousin Amos to Beershorn, yes, I did.'
'Ay, ye went. And did the old devil say anything about me?'
Flora could only recall a remark about dead men's shoes, which it would scarcely be prudent to repeat, so she replied that she did not remember much of what had been said because the sermon had been so powerful that it had driven everything else out of her head.
'I was advising Cousin Amos,' she added, 'to address his sermons to a wider audience. I think he ought to go round the country on a lorry, preaching—'
'Frittenin' the harmless birds off the bushes, more like—' interposed Reuben, gloomily.
'—at fairs and on market days. You see, if Cousin Amos were away a good deal it would mean that someone else would have to take charge of the farm, wouldn't it?'
'Someone else will have to take charge of it, in any case, when the old devil dies,' said Reuben. Stark passion curdled the whites of his eyes and his breath came thraw.
'Yes, of course,' said Flora. 'He talks of leaving it to Adam. Now, I don't think that would be at all wise, do you? To begin with, Adam is ninety. He has no children (at least, he has none so far as I know, and, of course, I do not listen to what Mrs Beetle says), and I should not think he is likely to marry, should you? Nor has he the legal type of mind. I shouldn't imagine he would trouble to make a will, for example. And if he did make one, who knows who he would leave the farm to? He might leave it to Feckless, or even to Aimless, and that would mean a lot of legal trouble, for I doubt if two cows can inherit a farm. Then, again, Pointless and Graceless might put in a claim for it, and that could easily mean an endless lawsuit in which all the resources of the farm would be swallowed up. Oh, no, I hardly think it would do for Cousin Amos to leave the farm to Adam. I think it would be much better if he were persuaded to go on a preaching tour round England, or perhaps to retire to some village a long way off and write a nice long book of sermons. Then whoever was left in charge of the farm could get a good grip of affairs here, and when Cousin Amos did come back at last, he would see that the management of the farm must be left in the hands of that person in order to save all the bother of getting things reorganized. You see, Reuben, Cousin Amos could not think of leaving the farm to Adam then, because the person who had been managing it would obviously be the person to leave it to.'
