• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 874 0

and the Straffords on a curious point of principle. They had maintained that the community, having set themselves apart from the world to follow Adam's trade of digging and delving, should equip themselves only with tools of minimal simplicity and should compensate by honest and dedicated effort for what they had chosen to lack in mechanization. Michael regarded this view as an absurd piece of romanticism, and said so. After all, they were engaged in a particular piece of work and should do it, to God's glory, as well as the fruitful discoveries of the age would allow. He was answered that they had all of them withdrawn from the world to live a life which was, by ordinary standards, not a 'natural' one in any case. They had to determine their own conception of the 'natural'. They were not a profit-making concern, so why should efficiency be their first aim? It was the quality of the work which mattered, not its results. As there was something symbolic, and indeed sacramental, in their withdrawal from the world, so their methods of work should share that quality. Honest spades were to be permitted. Even a plough. But none of these new-fangled labour-saving devices. 'Good heavens!' Michael had exclaimed, 'we shall be weaving our own clothes next!' - and had thereby mortally offended Margaret Stafford whose cherished plan for a craft centre at Imber did in fact include weaving. It was certainly a question with wide implications.

Michael thought that the argument came particularly ill from Mark Stafford, who always discovered urgent work in the office whenever some hard digging was to be done; but he recognized it as a strong one, having more than a merely romantic appeal. They had set themselves outside the bounds of ordinary convention, but without adopting any clear traditional mode of life. They had to invent their own norms. Michael felt sure that his own view was the right one; to be eclectic to this extent about methods of work was a sort of idiotic aestheticism. Yet he found it hard to argue the point clearly, and was distressed to find how emotional he soon became about it. Everyone else seemed ready to become emotional too, and. by now the excitement had gone on long enough. In driving the matter to a vote instead of quietly dropping it Michael knew that he was trying to impose his own conception of how the community should develop. It seemed important to him to outlaw nonsense of this kind from the start; but he found his role in doing so a distasteful one.

A silence followed Michael's invitation to speak. It was a subject on which the interested parties had already said rather too much. James shook his head and looked down, indicating that he would make no more speeches.

Patchway said in a tone which was half statement and half question, 'That don't make no difference about the plough.' Patchway had been one of those who looked askance at the cultivator, but for different reasons. He regarded it as an amateur's toy.

'No, of course not,' said Michael. 'This thing won't replace the plough. We'll need that anyway for the heavy work, such as ploughing up that bit of pasture in the autumn.' They had a standing arrangement to borrow a plough from a nearby farmer.

More silence followed, and Michael called for the vote. For the cultivator were Michael, Peter, Catherine, Patchway and Sister Ursula. Against it, James and Mark. Margaret Strafford abstained.

Trying not to sound pleased, Michael said 'I think that's a sufficient majority to act on. May I be empowered to go and buy the cultivator?' A murmur empowered him. Michael felt there was something to be said for being a leader after all.

Margaret Strafford spoke in a high nervous voice. She was timid of speaking, even in such an informal gathering, 'I don't suppose this is the moment to raise the question about the pottery. But I'd just like to ask people to keep it in mind. I'll raise it again later on.' Margaret was anxious that, even if mechanization should triumph on the agricultural front, at least the Simple Life should be available in other forms.

Michael