Free A Drake at the Door by Derek Tangye

to preserve our way of life at Minack at any cost; and if this meant behaving in a manner utterly opposite to the intentions with which we began, it had to be accepted as the penalty of personal freedom.
    Perhaps in my subconscious I have always wanted to be a tycoon, and a tycoon was my Walter Mitty. Certainly in my limited way I behaved like one. Within the next two years I had bought a tractor, a large number of daffodil bulbs, and four more greenhouses.
    I was consumed by the conviction that our business could only be made successful by capital expenditure; and as that capital, like the capital of most businesses, could only be borrowed, the noose was tightening around my neck. The more I extended my plans, the more committed I became to responsibilities I wanted to avoid. I was pursuing the age-old formula of sacrificing the present for the ephemeral future. I had to spend in order to earn the turnover which would give us security.
    Our fourteen acres stretched along the rim of Mount’s Bay, glorious meadows tilting towards the sea where we could stand and marvel at the beauty of the fishing boats below us as they hurried busily east to Newlyn and west towards Land’s End. And beyond were the cargo boats and Atlantic liners sailing aslant across the horizon from the Wolf Rock to the Lizard.
    The gannets dived a half-mile out, sometimes singly, sometimes by the score, plummeting from the sky, hitting the water with a spit of a bullet. The gulls fluttered low, watching as if enviously. Cormorants sped on their mysterious missions. Curlews called their wistful cries. And sometimes as we stood there the sea looked so meek that it seemed there never would be a storm again; and sometimes its rage was so terrible that we held each other and were scared.
    In olden days most of this land was cared for by hand labour. The meadows were too confined and steep for a plough, and so the shovels used to lurch through the soil. They were being used on this land when we first came to Minack, but I, thinking of myself as forward-looking, decided I could do the work both more cheaply and more efficiently by using machines. Hence I began using a rotovator.
    It was a punishing instrument; and after three or four hours of hurtling up and down the meadows clutching its handlebars, I used to return to the cottage and lie down exhausted on the sofa. Nor did my muscles ever learn to accept the punishment, and for days following a rotovating session I would ache with muscular pains.
    It was never a friendly machine. It was obstinate to start, drawing the fire of my temper even before the real task had begun. It broke down with frequency, as if it were a recalcitrant workman who pursued a policy of lightning strikes whenever he considered the work was too tough for him. It was dangerous. Once it turned over, a tine hooking my foot as it did so, and putting me to bed for a fortnight. I hated it, and although there would always be periods when it would be useful, I had to face up to the fact that it was too small for the job we now had in hand; and in any case, having suffered so much myself I could hardly expect Geoffrey, who now worked for me, to suffer as well.
    We set about, therefore, searching for a tractor. It had to be small and easily manoeuvrable, and it most certainly had to be well balanced. Tractors are inclined to topple over on any hilly ground, but at Minack a tractor would face tests like those of a motorbike scramble. We perused the catalogues, Geoffrey and I, and decided that two might meet our requirements; and we asked for a demonstration. Each tractor came from rival firms. Both arrived at the same time.
    It was a cold November afternoon and an east wind from the sea was chilling our fields. A cheerless day and its mood fitted that of the demonstrators. They were irritated they had chosen the same hour to show off their paces. They eyed each other, coat collars buttoned high, as if they were rival centurions waiting for the off