Free Beyond the Green Hills by Anne Doughty

green sward into rich,chestnut-brown furrows. At the top of the field it paused, and with a deft, practised movement the driver brought the plough round in line to begin the next, dead straight furrow. As it came back down again, the rich brown earth curled away from the coulter like the bow wave of a trim, swift vessel.
    ‘That’s what I’d do. I’d farm. Dairy cattle in particular,’ he said, with an assurance totally out of keeping with his normally diffident approach to practical matters.
    ‘You know about dairy cattle?’ she asked, wondering if there could possibly be some part of his life she’d missed out on.
    ‘No,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘I don’t. But I’d learn.’
    She sat silent, amazed at his confidence. The implications began to break in on her. Questions poured into her mind, but she held back. The change in his appearance, his whole manner, told her all she needed to know for the moment. Suddenly an image came back into her mind. A wet afternoon during her first visit to Caledon, four years ago now. They were playing Monopoly and talking. While Ginny stacked up more and more money, she’d asked each of the three what they’d do if they were rich. Andrew had made them laugh. ‘I’d buy cows.’ It was his unexpected promptness that amused them, not just the cows. It seemed so unlikely a wish for a man about to spend the next three years articled to a firm of solicitors in Winchester.
    ‘Where would you farm, Andrew?’ she asked as steadily as she could.
    ‘Anywhere I could afford to buy land.’
    ‘Canada?’ she said, before she had even considered it.
    He paused, looked out again at the opposite hillside, where the elderly blue tractor was now making its steady way back up to the top of the field. A smile played over his features.
    ‘Mm. Why not? Why not Canada?’
    He paused once more and the smile faded as quickly as the light goes when a cloud crosses the sun. When he spoke again his voice was dull and heavy.
    ‘Canada. Or Australia. Anywhere. If it’s dreams we’re dreaming, what does it matter? It’s not real. Dreams never are, are they?’ he said bitterly.
    ‘If I hadn’t asked you what you’d do if you were rich, would you have told me you wanted to farm?’ she asked coolly.
    ‘No, I don’t think so.’
    ‘Well then, we’re that much further on. If you want to farm, I need a job to keep us fed until the farm can support us, so I can’t be a million miles from a town with a school,’ she began. ‘Would you have to buy land or can it be rented?’
    ‘Depends where. In Canada and Australia it’s still easy to get started, or I think it is. I’ve a cousin in Saskatchewan who went off with nothing about twenty years ago. They’ve got two hundred head now.’
    ‘Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta,’ she murmured, a sudden memory filling her mind. Ox-eyed daisies and an old reaping machine outside the forge,herself in the high seat, driving her horses across the prairie.
    ‘If we went to Canada, Ronnie would help us. He seems to know everything that’s going on. When I wrote and told him we were engaged he wrote back and asked where we were going, once we were married. He simply assumed we weren’t going to stay here.’
    ‘I couldn’t ask you to take the risk, Clare,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘It could be pretty rough for you. To begin with at least.’
    ‘I’m not exactly made of Dresden china,’ she retorted. ‘Besides, a teaching post in Belfast isn’t exactly an exciting prospect. To be honest, I hadn’t thought of what I would do, except be with you.’
    ‘Nor had I,’ he confessed sheepishly. ‘I just reckoned, after all these years, I was stuck with law, whether I liked it or not.’
    ‘Well, let’s not get stuck with anything. Let’s see what we can think up.’
    He gave her his hand, drew her to her feet and kissed her tenderly.
    ‘What would I do without you, my love? What would I do without you?’
    They stood in the shadow of the