Ploughman

“ How nobly the ploughman and the plough and three horses, two chestnuts and a white leader, glide over the broad swelling field in the early morning! Under the dewy, dark-green woodside they wheel, pause and go out into the strong light again, and they seem one and glorious, as if the all-breeding earth had just sent them up out of her womb—mighty, splendid and something grim, with darkness and primitive forces clinging about them, and the night in the horses’ manes. ”

“ Is the ploughman in his bothy unfurnished with table or chair, and the peasant in his “clay-built biggin,” damp and smoky though it be, more miserably accommodated with the comforts and conveniences of life than the haggard sons of toil, who are doomed to burrow in the murky lanes and blind alleys of our teeming seats of merchandise? Does the brawny arm and ruddy complexion of the ploughman bespeak deficient food or raiment, and manifest such dubious symptoms of health as the pinched countenance and pallid complexion of the attenuated artisans who live in “populous city pent?” ”

“ Next year that furrow will be filled up and covered by a new furrow. Thus the majority of men make their mark and disappear in the field of humanity. A little earth effaces it, and the furrows we have made succeed one another like graves in the cemetery. Is not the furrow of the ploughman as valuable as that of the idler, who has a name, however, a name that will live, if, by reason of some peculiarity or some absurd exploit, he makes a little noise in the world?
So let us, if we can, rescue from oblivion the furrow of Germain, the cunning ploughman. ”

“ And when I have occasionally beheld a ploughman, bricklayer, gardener, weaver, or blacksmith, begin his work in the morning, I have envied him the readiness and willingness with which he took to it. The plough-man, after he has got his horses harnessed to the plough, does not delay a minute: into the turf the shining share enters, and away go horses, plough and man. ”

“ In a week or two the ploughman would settle down to his plough, the carpenter to his bench, the smith to his anvil, the merchant to his money, and the dead come to life would be utterly forgotten. No matter in what manner the possibilities of human life are put before the world, the crowd continues as stolid as before. ”

“ When thou returnest, the ploughman ties thee to a stinking manger, and thou friskest and pawest the ground and buttest with thy horns and bellowest greatly, and they think thou art content. No sooner have they thrown thee thy fodder than thou fallest on it greedily and hastenest to fill thy belly with it. ”

“ Often, in secluded and quiet parts of that valley, where the stream is overhung by dark woods and rocks, the ploughman, on some calm and sunny day as he shouts to his oxen, is surprised at hearing faint shouts from the hill-sides in reply; being, it is said, the spell-bound warriors, who half start from their rocky couches and grasp their weapons, but sink to sleep again. ”

“ A Master in a Monastery School questions his Pupil’s Companions and his Pupil. Source.—Ælfric’s Colloquy. Thorpe’s Analecta Anglo-Saxonica. Translated by W.
The Ploughman. Master.—Well, ploughman, how do you do your work?
Ploughman.—O sir, I work very hard. I go out in the dawning, driving the oxen to the field, and I yoke them to the plough. Be the winter never so stark, I dare not stay at home, for fear of my lord; but, every day I must plough a full acre or more, after having yoked the oxen, and fastened the share and the coulter to the plough. ”

“ On every side they rose in multitudes, armed with rustic weapons, and with irresistible fury. The ploughman became a foot soldier, the shepherd mounted on horseback, the deserted villages and open towns were abandoned to the flames, and the ravages of the peasants equalled those of the fiercest barbarians. ”

“ The symptoms which betray a ploughman’s excitement are not very readable; but it pleased me to see that there was some spirit of emulation in the competitors, who were for the most part busy in putting up their ploughs, placing them in carts and waggons ready for the return home. The President would not disturb the Judges; so we hung about, waiting for them, he, good-humouredly talking to some of the ploughmen. ”

“ Cloven apart by the might of the bulls and the ploughman strong.
And terribly crashed and groaned, the ploughshare’s furrows along,
The clods uprent, of a man’s load each, and with sturdy stride
Trampling the path the hero followed, and aye flung wide
The teeth of the serpent over the clods upheaved by the share,
Ever heedfully turning his head, lest haply, or e’er he was ware,
The harvest fell of the Earth-born against him should rise: and with strain
Of brazen hoofs on laboured the while that fearsome twain. ”

“ Amid the oppressive injustice of the great and the vices of their idle retainers, the corruptions of the clergy, and the dishonesty which too frequently characterised the dealings of merchants and traders, the simple unsophisticated heart of the ploughman is held forth as the dwelling of virtue and truth. ”

“ AN ANCIENT PLOUGH.
"That the plough is the same here to-day that it was three thousand years ago, we have proof in the pictures of agriculture on the walls of the tombs at Thebes. The ancient implement is identical with the modern one, the propelling force is the same, and the principal difference we can see is in the costume of the ploughman."
"The plough only scratches the earth," said Fred; "and if the soil was not very rich they would soon find out they needed something that would stir up the ground a little deeper." ”

“ Even at the end of the fourteenth century the writer of Piers Ploughman, when he paints for us the picture of the feudal world as it then was, has no dream that its bondage can ever be broken, that there is any escape out of the prison-house of mediæval society. ”

“ But if the life of the ploughman is familiar to our author, the work he has to do, and the mode of doing it well, and the reason why it should be done one way here, and another way there, are no less so. The uninitiated have no idea of the complicated patterns which the ploughman works, according to the nature of the soil and the season of the year in which he labours. ”

“ The engraving represents a ploughman driving his plough through a field. A vast expanse of country stretches away in the distance, with some poor cabins here and there; the sun is setting behind the hill. It is the close of a hard day's work. The peasant is a short, thick-set man, old, and clothed in rags. ”

“ The Farmer met him at the door, and asked him whither was he going, or what was he seeking? He answered that he was a ploughman, and that he wanted an engagement. "I want a ploughman, and if we agree about the wages, I will engage thee. What dost thou ask from this day to the day when the crop will be gathered in?" "Only as [107] much of the corn when it shall be dry as I can carry with me in one burden-withe." "Thou shalt get that," said the Farmer, and they agreed.
Next morning the Farmer went out with the Ploughman, and showed him the fields which he had to plough. ”

“ Then Plough Monday reminded them of their business, and on the morning of that day, the men and maids strove who should show their readiness to commence the labours of the year, by rising the earliest. If the ploughman could get his whip, his plough-staff, hatchet, or any field implement, by the fireside, before the maid could get her kettle on, she lost her Shrove-tide cock to the men. Thus did our forefathers strive to allure youth to their duty, and provided them innocent mirth as well as labour. ”

“ Nothing could be more primitive than the plough of the Romans. It consists of a single stick or lever, fixed to a block having the form of a sock or coulter, with a projection behind, on which the ploughman puts his foot, and assists the bullocks over a difficulty. The work done by this implement we would not call ploughing: it simply scratches the surface to the depth of some three or four inches, with which the poor husbandman is content. The soil is in general light, but it might be otherwise tilled; and, were it so, would yield far other harvests than those now known in Italy. ”

“ Besides, they find fault with his ho, and gee, and wo, when ploughing. 'He speaks to the horse,' they say, 'and they gang—and there's something no canny about the man.' In short, between the prejudices of laziness and superstition, the ploughman leads a sorry life of it;—yet these prejudices are daily abating, under the steady and indulgent management of the proprietor. Indeed, nowhere is improvement in agriculture more necessary. An old-fashioned Zetland plough is a real curiosity. ”

“ At the back of the plough, three "horns" or tails stick out; these are the handles by which the plough is driven by a powerful man. It depends upon the driving of this ploughman whether the sod be made wide or narrow and the furrow deep or shallow; it is this man's duty to fix and lift the plough at the edge of the field; he must also be able, on stony ground, to pull the plough out of the way of any larger stone than usual, for the oxen cannot be brought suddenly to a standstill; and the plough, if left to itself, would soon go to wreck and ruin. ”

“ Who sees the meaning of the flower uprooted in the ploughed field? The ploughman who does not look beyond its boundaries and does not raise his eyes from the ground? No—but the poet who sees that field in its relations with the universe, and looks oftener to the sky than on the ground. Only the dreamer shall understand realities, though, in truth, his dreaming must not be out of proportion to his waking! ”

“ The Farmer of Liddesdale
HERE was in Liddesdale (in Morven) a Farmer who suffered great loss within the space of one year. In the first place, his wife and children died, and shortly after their death the Ploughman left him. The hiring-markets were then over, and there was no way of getting another ploughman in place of the one that left. When spring came his neighbours began ploughing; but he had not a man to hold the plough, and he knew not what he should do. ”

“ If a ploughman is likely to work better for having full command of his limbs and use of his eyes, what must be the difference in the case of the miner, of the fisherman, and all who live in the presence of danger, of having minds awake, nerves and spirits strong, and all powers at ready call? ”

“ A ploughman of the Ch'in State. One day he stood still in the furrows and said to his fellow-labourers, "When I am rich and powerful, I will not forget you." "How is a ploughman going to get rich and powerful?" ”

“ When harvest time and the holy weeks are omitted, the plough is to ‘go’ every week-day throughout the year, despite frost and tempest. Obviously it is a programme that can only enter the head of an enthusiastic lord who has supernumerary oxen, and will know how to fill the place of a ploughman who is ill. We have little warrant for believing that what Walter hopes to do is being commonly done in his day, less for importing his projects into an earlier age. ”

“ In the beginning, when man began to plough, when he had cut a furrow from one end to the other, he lifted his plough on to his shoulder, and when he had carried it back to the same end that he had begun from, he began again to plough thence. The Lord, in the form of an old man, passed by and said to him, ‘Not thus, my son, but when you make a furrow, turn your plough round at the same place to which you have cut the furrow, and plough back to the end from which you began.’ And thus the ploughman learnt to plough aright, as people plough at this day. ”

“ Agriculture was still in its infancy, and the farmer refused to adopt a new and attractive plough because it did not permit the ploughman to walk near enough to his team, that he might twist the tail of the patient bullock. ”

“ Even the ploughman and the shepherd very often renounced toil which seemed profitless and turned themselves to plunder or vagabondage, but much more was the higher commerce extinguished and the educated professions died out. ”

“ At first the trees were cut down without much regard to the height of the stumps, but as the forest receded from the camps, making transportation difficult, the stumps were dug up by the roots, leaving the ground perfectly smooth, and made ready for the ploughman, whenever our swords are beaten into ploughshares and our battle spears into pruning hooks. ”

“ In a word, never was there heard at Hall Place—not even when the fox was killed in the conservatory, among acres of broken glass, and tons of smashed flower-pots—such a noise, row, hubbub, babel, shindy, hullabaloo, stramash, charivari, and total contempt of dignity, repose, and order, as that day, when Grimes, gardener, the groom, the dairymaid, Sir John, the steward, the ploughman, the keeper, and the Irishwoman, all ran up the park, shouting, “Stop thief,” in the belief that Tom had at least a thousand pounds’ worth of jewels in his empty pockets ”

“ I do not envy the man, be he ploughman, starred tradesman, or merely possessed of a sickly conscience, who can apply for leave to stay at home, while old men and little children till the fields of Northern France without horses, oxen, or ploughs, under the hard rule of the Hun. ”

“ In the rest of Europe, a ploughman, an artisan, is an animal formed for the pleasures of a noble; in France, the nobles are trying to transform themselves into ploughmen and artisans, but do not succeed in obtaining that honor."21111 Life in all directions is gradually assuming democratic forms Wealthy prisoners are prohibited from purchasing delicacies, or procuring special conveniences ”

“ in which Case it appears plainly, that a Ploughman on his Legs is higher than a Gentleman on his Knees, as Poor Richard says. ”

“ Ploughing was probably despised as a form of manual labour, and hence an undignified action for a member of the aristocracy, just as a squire or gentleman farmer in England might consider it beneath his dignity to drive the plough himself. ”