A quarter of an hour later the farmer passed round his body the strap fixed to the box on wheels in which the cripple was seated and began dragging it as one tows a boat; the oxen, led by François, going on in front. They took the same road which Jean Nesmy had taken the morning of his dismissal; his footprints were still visible in the dust. There were four superb oxen, preceded by a grey mare, Noblet, Cavalier, Paladin, and Matelot, all with tawny coats, widespread horns, high backs, and slow supple gait. With perfect ease they drew the plough, the share raised, up the steep ascent; and when a trail of bramble across their path tempted them, they would simultaneously slacken speed, and the iron chain that linked the foremost couple to the beam would clank on the ground. François walked gloomily beside them, deep in thought on matters not connected with the day's work. Those following him, the farmer and his crippled son, were equally silent, but their thoughts were centred on the soil over which they were passing; and with the like sense of peaceful content their eyes roamed over gates, ditches, fields, their minds filled with the same simple interests. With them meditation was a sign of their calling, the mark of the noble vocation of those by whose labours the world is fed. Arrived at the top of the knoll in the field of La Cailleterie, his father helped Mathurin out of the little cart to the foot of an ash-tree, whose branches threw a light shadow over the slope. Before them the fallow land, covered with weeds and ferns, fell away in an even descent, surrounded by hedges on the four sides. Looking down the slope and over the lower hedge could be seen the Marais fading away in the distance like a blue plain. And now the farmer, having loosened the pin that held the share, himself guided the plough to the extreme left of the field, and put it in place. "You stay there in the sun," he said to Mathurin. "And you, François, lead your oxen straight. This is a grand day for ploughing. Ohé! Noblet, Cavalier, Paladin, Matelot!"