ding corn on to the knife, which
cut it and thrust it into the mysterious recesses of the machine in the
twinkling of the blade. The next instant the bound bundle, neatly
knotted round with string, was vomited forth on the far side....

So the machine--capable, crimson, noisy--went on its magic way with a
glitter of whirling metal and a rhythmic clatter, the white blades of
the wheel flashing up against the sky. And a quiet little old man in
shirt-sleeves and trousers all of a soft faded blue bent about in the
stubble at its wake, leaning the bundles up, three together, against
each other, the delicate heads interlacing, and the fresh green of the
"lug"--the clover and other green things cut with the crop that make it
so rich a food for the cattle--showing through the stems here and there.

"How d'you find it, John-Willy?" asked Ishmael of the little old man,
who rolled an ear of barley in his horny fingers and answered:

"Rich, Maister Ishmael, rich!..."

So it had come to the time of the harvest at Cloom, and the crops were
sound and sweet, and, if the weather held, the threshing would soon
follow. Life and harvest went on as they had for years, and Ishmael saw
that all things were done as they should be, and now the House had
adjourned and Nicky had come down to help him. For this, after all, was
life, Ishmael told himself--this seeing to the earth and her fulness,
this dealing with men and their wages and their work. This was definite;
about it there could be no illusion, no shattering of beliefs.

Nicky, who for all his years was still occasionally swept by the impulse
to play, now when he saw Jimmy riding so triumphantly upon the leader
stopped the machine as it came past, and, bidding the driver dismount,
took his place upon the high iron seat and started off. Jimmy shrieked
with delight, and urged on his horse so fast that Nicky had to shout to
him to keep quiet. Jimmy kept on turning his head to see the completed
bundles being emitted from the back of the binder, and at every one he
gave a whoop of joy as though it were a result of his and his father's
cleverness. Nicky cracked his whip neatly round the boy's head without
ever touching him, as he had learnt to do in Canada, and every time the
little group of men and women standing beside Ishmael, his tenants,
applauded, admiringly. "They make a handsome pair, so they do!" said old
John-Willy Jacka. "I reckon you'm rare proud of your son and grandson,
Maiste