Outside, and as it seems but a stone’s throw distant, stands the old grey church, and about it the still, silent, green-grown mounds over those who once followed the quiet plough.

Bound the corner of the village street comes a man with a grimy red flag, and over the roofs of the cottages rises a cloud of smoke, and behind it yet another.  Two steam ploughing engines are returning from their work to their place beside the shed to wait fresh orders.  The broad wheels of the engines block up the entire width of the street, and but just escape overthrowing the feeble palings in front of the cottage doors.  Within those palings the children at play scarcely turn to look; the very infants that can hardly toddle are so accustomed to the ponderous wonder that they calmly gnaw the crusts that keep them contented.  It requires a full hour to get the unwieldy engines up the incline and round the sharp turns on to the open space by the workshop.  The driver has to ‘back,’ and go-a-head, and ‘back’ again, a dozen times before he can reach the place, for that narrow bye-way was not planned out for such traffic.  A mere path leading to some cottages in the rear, it was rarely used even by carts before the machinist came, and it is a feat of skill to get the engines in without, like a conqueror, entering by a breach battered in the walls.  When, at last, they have been piloted into position, the steam is blown off, and the rushing hiss sounds all over the village.  The white vapour covers the ground like a cloud, and the noise re-echoes against the old grey church, but the jackdaws do not even rise from the battlements.

These engines and their corresponding tackle are the chief stock-in-trade of the village machinist.  He lets them out to the farmers of the district, which is principally arable; that is, he contracts to do their ploughing and scarifying at so much per acre.  In the ploughing seasons the engines are for ever on the road, and with their tackle dragging behind them take up the highway like a train.  One day you may hear the hum and noise from a distant field on the left; in a day or two it comes from another on the right; next week it has shifted again, and is heard farther off northwards, and so all round the compass.

The visitor, driving about the neighbourhood, cannot but notice the huge and cumbrous-looking plough left awhile on the sward by the roadside.  One-half of the shares stand up high in the air, the other half touch the ground, and it is so nicely balanced that boys sometimes play at see-saw on it.  He will meet the iron monster which draws this plough by the bridge over the brook, pausing while its insatiable thirst is stayed from the stream.  He will see it patiently waiting, with a slight curl of steam over the boiler, by the wayside inn while its attendants take their lunch.

It sometimes happens in wet weather that the engines cannot be moved from the field where they have been ploughing.  The soil becomes so soft from absorbing so much water that it will not bear up the heavy weight.  Logs and poles are laid down to form a temporary way, but the great wheels sink too deeply, and the engines have to be left covered with tarpaulins.  They have been known to remain till the fresh green leaves of spring on the hedges and trees almost hid them from sight.