He knew that Worge leaned on him, for he felt the weight of it even in his dreams. It was four years now since he had put his shoulder against it; he was only just twenty, but he knew that if four years ago he had not made up his mind to save the farm, his father would have drunk, and the rest of the family muddled, the place into the auction market, and the Beatups would now be scattered into towns or soaking their humble-pie in beer on smallholdings. He had done nothing very wonderful. The place was small and no more wanted a giant to hold it up than a giant to knock it down. He had merely worked while others slacked, thought while others slept, remembered while others forgot. But, without any thrill of pride or adventure, he knew that he had tided Worge through its bad hour, and that the same little upheld it now. He was the real farmer, though he had to be careful not to let his headship be seen. His father had not explained things clearly to the tribunal—explaining things clearly was not a quality of Tom’s either—he had been far too anxious to preserve his own importance, which might have suffered had he said, “My son runs the farm while I’m drinking at the pub.” The others were not even as much good as his father. In the intervals of drinking, which in spite of Mrs. Beatup’s three-in-five calculation were often quite respectable, he was both hard-working and resourceful, though of late his brain had grown spongier and threatened a final rot. But the rest of the family had no upstanding moments. Ivy was strong and comparatively willing, but Tom did not believe in girls as farm-hands and never thought of Ivy even milking the cows. She and her mother looked after the chickens and did the housework, that was all. Nell was out all day and busy working in the evenings for her examination; Zacky was still at school, and Harry was a rover—the comrade of other farmers’ younger sons in ratting and sparrow-hunting, in visiting fairs, in trespassing for birds’ eggs, or sometimes solitary in strange obedience to the call of distant wood or village green. Yet Harry was Tom’s one hope—a last, forlorn one. Tom was waiting for him now. He wanted to speak to his young brother alone, not in the dim lath-smelling bedroom where Zacky would be a third. Harry did not generally stop out late, though he had occasionally roamed all night—hunger and fear of a beating (another of Tom’s quasi-paternal tasks) usually brought him home just in time to satisfy one and escape the other.