But Somers was very fond of the family at Buryan farm, and he loved
working with John Thomas and the girls. John Thomas was a year or two
older than Somers, and at this time his dearest friend. And so he loved
working all day among the corn beyond the high-road, with the savage
moors all round, and the hill with its pre-christian granite rocks
rising like a great dark pyramid on the left, the sea in front.
Sometimes a great airship hung over the sea, watching for submarines.
The work stopped in the field, and the men watched. Then it went on
again, and the wagon rocked slowly down the wild, granite road, rocked
like a ship past Harriet’s sunken cottage. But Somers stayed above all
day, loading or picking, or resting, talking in the intervals with John
Thomas, who loved a half-philosophical, mystical talking about the sun,
and the moon, the mysterious powers of the moon at night, and the
mysterious change in man with the change of season, and the mysterious
effects of sex on a man. So they talked, lying in the bracken or on the
heather as they waited for a wain. Or one of the girls came with dinner
in a huge basket, and they ate all together, so happy with the moors and
sky and touch of autumn. Somers loved these people. He loved the
sensitiveness of their intelligence. They were not educated. But they
had an endless curiosity about the world, and an endless interest in
what was _right_.
“Now do you think it’s right, Mr Somers?” The times that Somers heard
that question, from the girls, from Arthur, from John Thomas. They spoke
in the quick Cornish way, with the West Cornish accent. Sometimes it
was:
“Now do’ee think it right?”
And with their black eyes they watched the ethical issue in his face.
Queer it was. Right and wrong was not fixed for them as for the English.
There was still a mystery for them in what was right and what was wrong.
Only one thing was wrong--any sort of _physical_ compulsion or hurt.
That they were sure of. But as for the rest of behaviour--it was all a
flux. They had none of the ethics of chivalry or of love.
Sometimes Harriet came also to tea: but not often. They loved her to
come: and yet they were a little uneasy when she was there. Harriet was
so definitely a lady. She liked them all. But it was a bit _noli me
tangere_, with her. Somers was so _very_ intimate with them. She
couldn’t be. And the girls said: “Mrs Somers don’t mix in wi’ the likes
o’ we like Mr Somers do.” Yet they were always very pleased when Harriet
came.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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