Susan in NC’s Reviews > Corduroy > Status Update

“ I looked well upon that great circle of crossed clasped hands – father, mother, sons, daughters, sons’ sons, and daughters’ daughters – for it seemed to me that it had remained unbroken longer than Fate usually allows, and soon somebody must fall out, and, times being what they were, I might never again see such a family thus gathered in their home.”🥹

“I remarked that it was a very happy reunion. ‘Yes…I am glad I have lived to see this day, and my boys all alive and well, what with the war and all, and their children too.’ ‘It must be almost a record,’ I suggested. ‘Indeed, I thank God for the mercies He has bestowed on me,’ said the old man... Towards midnight we sang ‘Auld Lang Syne.’”

“ I bought Darky and Dewdrop for forty-seven and forty-five guineas respectively. The auctioneer remembered my name from the things I had bought earlier in the sale. ‘Mr Bell, isn’t it? Yes.’ It was a recognition of me as member of the agricultural community, a farmer; no longer a youth looking at farming. Had I not received a circular that morning addressed to Mr Bell, Farmer, Benfield St George…?”

“…we met the late occupier of the farm who was retiring on his war-time gains, and was pleased to make a lavish gesture of the occasion by providing luncheon in the barn for the chief farmers of the neighbourhood who should attend the sale…It was a usual thing to provide a barn luncheon in the old days of agriculture, as it was also, at a sale of stock, for the owner to distribute glasses of port round the ring.”

“I went with Mr Colville to a sale of farming stock near by, whose owner had the reputation of keeping the best…The farm was a large one, and there were many lots, so the sale had been fixed for eleven o’clock, which meant eleven-thirty, the equivalent of punctuality for a farm sale.”

“I was to take possession on October the eleventh, Michaelmas Day, which was the usual date on which farms changed hands…Everywhere vans and lorries stacked with furniture went to and fro, for foremen, stockmen, milkmen, horsekeepers, often moved with their masters. The evening of that day saw many settling into new homes, for better or worse. It was already October, so I made haste to procure implements and horses.”

“October; and the signs of October again in the land; ladders in orchards, sheep and fowls on stubbles; new thatch; notices of farm sales plastered upon walls; the first scattering of leaves; and the spirit of ocean in the trees. I went through the ceremony of valuation on my farm, an auctioneer acting between the outgoing tenant and me.”

“…as I lay on my back rocked gently in the warm September sea, and gazed at the hotels, piers, promenade, and all the characteristics of that town built for those who did not live in it…I could not banish a feeling of strangeness that the vale of Benfield, with its timeless scenes, should be less than an hour by car from here.”

“…we came into the main road between the coast resort we were making for and London. An immediate change was apparent. The farm cart, the occasional cattle, the rustic with his pails from the well, and such-like, that had been our only encounters, were here lost in the traffic of fast cars to and fro. Here were hatless heads, flannels, bare legs, flying scarves.”

“I was pleased to find that I now knew not the least, but the least but one, in Benfield about agriculture. I was able to smile with Mr Colville over a stranger’s ignorance; it was a great moment. The question was just the kind that I had asked at first.”