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John-James was an old man now he had aged quickly with his outdoor life; but always he refused to let Ishmael pension him off, and though as overseer he had a wage passing any paid in the county, and though he lived comfortably enough in his little cottage chosen by himself, with a tidy body who came in from the village every day to attend to his wants, he still showed all the premature ageing of the countryman.
Vassie was very dear to him, though there had been few caresses between them during their lives. She stood for something to him no one else ever had, even as she did for John-James.
Down in the lowest meadow the oats had not yet been gathered into sheaves, and John-James, gazing at the sky, was of opinion that the sooner it was done the better. Ishmael agreed without enthusiasm, till it occurred to him that Blanche, who was so charmed with a farmer's life, would probably enjoy helping.
John-James' chief peculiarity was displayed always during the week's holiday he took every year; on each day of this week he would make a pilgrimage to some cemetery. A new graveyard was an unfailing magnet for him; he would spend hours there and return next year to note what new headstones had taken root. "Why on earth do you want to go and spend all your holiday in cemeteries, John-James?"
Annie and John-James proceeded to put the finishing touches to the kitchen John-James doing all the real good that was done, and Annie setting things backwards and forwards in her strange aimless way.
Archelaus had gone beyond her clutch, Tom she knew would evade her, John-James she, like Ishmael, found unresponsive. As for girls, she placed them below any male creature. She loved Vassie far more than she did Ishmael, if she could be said to love him at all, but nevertheless he was a son.
The afternoon somehow lacked the first ecstasy of the morning, the labour suddenly became harder to unaccustomed muscles, and the girls lay in the shadows of the stooks and idled. They had time to talk among themselves while Ishmael and John-James worked on at the far end of the field.
But if everyone else were out of temper, there was always one person he could be sure of finding the same, and that was John-James good, kind, reliable John-James, whom he adored. Did he want a boat made? John-James would do it with those big hands which looked so clumsy and were so sure and careful. Had he broken the rope reins with which he and Jacka's John-Willy played at horses?
The two went off to the cowsheds and for the next hour were examining livestock, from the calves down to the bees rather a rarity in those parts and the joy of John-James, who had the bee-gift, and was never stung, being able to move a swarm in his bare hands unscathed. Afterwards they walked over part of the farmlands, and Ishmael's heart began to beat high with pride and joy.
But he had not imagined the miracle to take the form of Jersey cows, and he began to wonder dolefully what newfangled notions about machinery and manure might not also be hatching in the young owner's brain. They mounted in silence the steepest slope of the rolling land and came to a stone hedge on which John-James leant, Ishmael beside him.
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