IN WHICH DAVID DISCOVERS CASSANDRA’S TROUBLE

After turning his furrows, David told Hoyle to ride the mule to the stable, then he sat himself on the fence, and meditated. He bethought him that in the paper he had drawn up he had made no provision for the use of the mule. He wiped his forehead and rubbed the perspiration from his hair, and coughed a little after his exertion, glad at heart to find himself so well off.

He would come and plough a little every day. Then he began to calculate the number of days it would take him to finish the patch, measuring the distance covered by the six furrows with his eye, and comparing it with the whole. He laughed to find that, at the rate of six furrows a day, the task would take him well on into the summer. Plainly he must find a ploughman.