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At fifteen Robert was his father's chief laborer. He was a very good plowman, and no one in all the countryside could wield the scythe or the threshing-flail with so much skill and vigor. He worked hard, yet he found time to read, borrowing books from whoever would lend them.
Sir Henry often discussed with me the economic conditions of Cyprus. The population, he said, comprised no class that in England would be called rich, and very few of the peasants, though mostly their own landlords, lived a life which an English plowman would tolerate.
Midway between Bede and Orm came Langland's poem, "The Vision of Piers Plowman," which paraphrased so much of the Scripture. Yet the fact is that until the last quarter of the fourteenth century there was no prose version of the Bible in the English language. Indeed, there was only coming to be an English language.
In what sort of work are the laborers engaged? Why may the author of Piers Plowman be called a reformer? Why was Gower undecided in what language to write? What is the subject matter of the Confessio Amantis? Chaucer. Good selections may be found in Bronson, I.; Ward, I.; P. and S., and Oxford Treasury, I. Skeat's Complete Works, 6 vols., is the best edition.
A Western boy wouldn't have stood it five minutes. The soil was at least half stone, and the stones were not all loose. Every other rod the plow brought up with a jerk that nearly flung the plowman over the top of it. Then he had to yank and haul it out, lift it over, and start again.
More numerous are those which lie high up on mountains or above precipitous rocks; such as the many peaks of Sinai, the lake on Haramuk in Kashmir, the cliffs of Rocamadour in Central France, which Piers Plowman mentions, or the grey cone of Athos.
He had no look of intelligence upon his face, but stared at me with a dull and idiotic eye. This was the peasant under the walls of Paris what must he be in the provincial forests? Leaving the plowman, I walked on, following a pretty little road, until I came to a large flock of sheep in the care of a shepherd-boy and a dog.
The woodman sang of the wild forest; the plowman sang of the fields; the shepherd sang of his sheep; and those who listened forgot about the storm and the cold weather. But in the corner, almost hidden from his fellows, one poor man was sitting who did not enjoy the singing. It was Caedmon, the cowherd. "What shall I do when it comes my turn?" he said to himself. "I do not know any song.
The nature of the dance was as follows: one man having laid aside his arms, sows, and drives a yoke of oxen, frequently turning to look back as if he were afraid. Sometimes, however, the plowman binds the robber, and then having fastened him to his oxen, drives him off with his hands tied behind him.
"And," he finished, with a sad smile, "it is our flowers that you put in vases of gold on your altars. And you say, 'Listen: Jesus the carpenter talks plain words to his fishermen friends. And, 'Hush! Burns the plowman makes songs in the field!" The doctor looked up, and his eyes were very tender; his smile made me wonder. With a swift, friendly hand he patted the rougher hand of the other.
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